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SUPT Ener rary seioi, eo + Rata bitestem ead A thottog 4) Hea degsn ria hate Mati dribedeot rugiena 4 SBA ERA) pelte aT Ebel a eee eG oR ated tloil ot teenie Hens inal " : ot Prom eee Lie wise het ; + he ed abs gl tiene SIMI tits tae Pee nn att aghe'la ys oe sober} age eek 4 ist best ; 43 Deir} eV RIE) de Regham ded he fant) aly sabe athe ah nda it Dafpratnntt egey ar Me tigi sibs bes anit aan oh ‘ eWay a: Yoo Ge shale ow) ae re) ECC SC Uae eae ere Pee eal RAY Oe meee ed bed aa lethe da forthe: ery heii bets Mea lied. “ tne a beds SMM elder fet ” Peet Hr eon el yet aby haba hehe} iene! he edb i (het a Avie la je ud Gals wi) yobeiade bt medals gay +44 yeh, aD el wh aafaeet sebadan thc ag ¥be Nea en Oe ea ga A Tass “) ne meh de ts fated THE UNIVERSETY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY 177 BH5G¢f 1914 The person charging this material is re- sponsible for its return on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University University of Illinois Library q q ; A : ; wr 7 Nie 2S NDGA DS UTR A ITER, q id by j e ¥ 2 ee ON OLS PLIES NASER DENA PTET ary L161—0-1096 i@ A ‘ys otis a Ud Pee ————— i SL TE BE LIT LR AIT ORL DOT EID FL ST REET LEE INIT LEN TIE NT I ERP ORES EIS NRE) $$ es - — FRIENDSHIP By: HUGH BLACK: AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE Ly ROBERTSON NICOLL ODD Ue USE e F BERKELEY SMITH NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO FLEMING H REVELL COMPANY ae aa RA TA MARE PE AT ayer 6 ~~ — } a te ea Copyright, 1898, by pas, Fieminc H. Revell CoMPANY » snes SAS on ee RRO (OPIN SY nee Np Se -- = = * —- Se ae. ; SE naar anarn cae ere ee V1 AU SN) aD) EEO a TO MY FRIEND | | | AND TO MANY OTHER FRIENDS WHO HAVE MADE LIFE RICH “Ay MJ yA Tt.) ~~ - 5 - tp aes “<3 eNO, 1a AAA so ECA EE PNA EN NLS LS NENT eS og ¢ Z E ORE SS aee® SRN OO Las aut s be. 7 4 NS OY 4 ey ay. es e 7 - DCC TI HNC COM DR OOM CN ee BAe ALE | | | - HECTOR MUNRO FERGUSON | | | LOVIN NII RSI (AVES MAE TL ZYVS VS a A ; 14, sP OO 3s ag Fenn. tt RE ft am “ Intreat me not to leave thee, And to return from following after thees For whither thou goest, I will go; And where thou lodgest, I will lodge: Thy people shall be my people, And thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, And there will I be buried: The Lord do so to me, and mere also, ff aught but death part thee and me.” Book of Ruth. IN AEP Se No FEET IT : qed ren yo ann tc epee nae ST eT OTT TN Siew e Wee entiar aes zie i716 ae - Coe re ne Oh ae Og Ee (RA APPRECIATION | By Sir Wm. Rosertson Nicott, D.D. i | Mr. Hucu BL ack’s wise and charming _ _ little book on Friendship is full of good | things winningly expressed, and, though __ very simply written, is the result of real _ thought and experience. Mr. Black’s is _ the art that conceals art. For young men, } especially, this volume will be a golden possession, and it can hardly fail to affect their after lives. Mr. Black says wellthat the subject of friendship is less thought | of among us now than it was in the old | i world. Marriage has come to mean in- finitely more. Communion with God in Christ has become to multitudes the primal fact of life. Nevertheless the © need for friendship remains, “British Weekly.” are |—OW Sma aes CAVIAR ALAL AAI AAT ASL SPE tnd UAT SUA ETA Se) Sa Teal tae | ses cok wy ae ) fn aw. — Hf ihe dm ve Bit ; ee *y ey? ol, git | henna | RON NW OAT TNO WONTON TU: Cum Oo r ———— oe easpebil _ soc ee | ee | DS VIVO AOS SA vay, WN ? ORG) Ly, D, A P DUPAGE SHAT is VPA LN VPIEEEMLALREINO AM eeomens Tra Seip KAT MR PLP EA | = = = eee Wnaea we wis wire oe sie Nag a aN Ee “WC eM (2D) MS ET Lt Friendship is to be valued for what there is in it, not for what can be gotten — out of it. When two people apprectate | each other’ because each has found the other convenient to have around, they are not friends, they are simply acquatnt- ances with a business understanding. To . seek friendship for its utility ts as futile | as to seek the end of a rainbow for us bag | of goid. A true friend is always useful | in the highest sense; but we should be- ware of thinking of our friends as brother members of a mutual-benefit association, with its periodical demands and threats | of suspension for non-payment of dues. | — TRUMBULL, t cieeietcmanomcae nel Sy eS 7 | | | { . TMC a pnt ow a a - nro hehe ately Bn Lhe Eat “a RSI TE LEE RAY a! CONTENTS i ; PAGE | | Tue Miracle oF FRIENDSHIP. . . . OTT i II | i | THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP . . . 33 | | III ; | Tue FRurrs oF FRIENDSHIP... . 57, x | ; ) | Ver | THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP . . . . 85 ES SR TAEA SER PRPS DICH TTC CIN Tee CUPOTOR SOTTO (Oy NASER SE SENT UR | | LEIS USES SA SYZLYYVI LS vie ee Seenus ccintmaanaeie Gees o Seen — an eee 5 J A (AAD) Tt 6, Pie) t . Vv eee Tue EcLipse.OF FRIENDSHIP . . . - 109 | VI | _ THe WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP . . « + 135 | VIEw Tue RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP . . « 163 | é 5 Vill | Tue LiMITs OF FRIENDSHIP . . . ~ 189 IX THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP . CU PLLA DLL DLL I DL a 7 TUITE OO NOOO TAN BANU SAYS SAY SANE YESS OSE NEANSACS ANSE SSO SONS 1 **But, far away from these, another sort Of lovers linked in true heart's consent; Which loved not as these for like intent, But on chaste virtue grounded their desire, Far from ali fraud or feigned blandishment; Which, in their spirits kindling zealous fire, Brave thoughts and noble deeds did evermore aspire. Such were great Hercules and Hylas dear; True Fonathan and David trusty tried; Stout Theseus and Pirithous his fere; Pylades and Orestes by his side; Mild Titus and Gesippus without pride; Damon and Pythias, whom death could not sever; All these, and all that ever had been tied : In bands of friendship, there did live forever; mot Whose lives although decay'd, vet loves decayed never.” — SPENSER, The Faerie Queene. eos CLOUT OLOAP AO AON OOO LO8 A ae ee aden eynsenmaetinensnaes “THE MIRACLE © _OF FRIENDSHIP meHE idea, so common in the an- cient writers, is not all a poetic , conceit, that the soul of aman is only a fragment of a larger 0 _ whole, and goes out in search of other - souls in which it will find its true coms | pletion. We walk among worlds un- _ realized, until we have learned the secret of love. We know this, and in our sin- cerest moments admit this, even though we are seeking to fill up our lives with other ambitions and other hopes. . It is more than a dream of youth that there may be here a satisfaction of the heart, without which, and in comparison with which, all worldly success is failure.» i WORDS UNO NOP QIOD) III) RVI? 2, ie UV y PV YS OES YS ASG OK ASD BY IEU TALE CoC Epil ei DDL De cuca neon BLA Py Ut bE DY Sao ne cane ye Neer SE _ THE } MIRACLE OF F RIENDSHIP Quan PU ee De aD In spite of the selfishness which seems to blight all life, our hearts tell us that there is possible a nobler relationship of disin- terestedness and devotion. (Friendship in its accepted sense is not the highest of the different grades in that relationship, but it has its place in the kingdom of love, and through it we bring ourselves © into training for a still larger love. “The natural man may be self-absorbed and — self-centred, but in a truer sense it is natural for him to give up self and link | his life on to others. Hence the joy with — which he makes the great discovery, that | he is something to another and another is — everything to him. It is the higher-nat- ~ ural for which he has hitherto existed, It is a miracle, but it happens. ' The cynic may speak of the now obso- | lete sentiment of friendship, and he can — NW | find much to justify his cynicism. In- _ Ike Ocal ‘deed, on the first blush, if we look at the i \ Bia) relative place the subject holds in ancient _ NS Ai ~as compared with modern literature, we | might say that friendship is a sentiment P ae = =p mG pa EOE ; UES DPE IRS TROL AT aS IR WIA c ROS We Syste Neate ea. 5. | NY) (CY KOI) A leareeans Baw URE us TERE YE Thiers {Saale tBiR T@uRaal Ti } } SitOy Le menne Bi al Tew RTO —— TO COCA ERC Tg ws that is rapidly becoming obsolete. (In Pagan writers friendship takes a much larger place than it now receives. The subject bulks largely in the works of Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus, Cicero. And among modern writers it gets most im- portance in the writings of the more Pagan-spirited, such as Montaigne. | In all the ancient systerns of philosophy, friendship was treated as an integral part of the system. To the Stoic it was a blessed occasion for the display of nobil- ity and the native virtues of the human mind,, To the Epicurean it was the most refined of the pleasures which made life worth living. In the Nicomacheani Ethics, ' Aristotle makes it the culminating point, and out of ten books gives two to the discussion of Friendship. _He makes it even the link of connection between his treatise on Ethics and his companion treatise on Politics. “It is to him both the perfection of the individual life, and the bond that holds states together. ‘Friend- ship is not only a beautiful .and" noble 15 S -anniegtieeneetoaanamts eee mii me RCV Te Vincyyit Va pow ’ > var +.) AP) Vee aX cA g DADS Pp Sk AY : —_ aay ‘ RR TEE Tr NE Sonn Sys per iimetinn a igh hand eet woe cern srs rience mer penne sos retina snes ch scessnseraspsisame inh debe, Sa Se RAT a er re ers Peng ‘thing for a man, but the realization of i* is also the ideal for the state; for if citi- zens be friends, then justice, which is the - great concern of all organized societies, © is more than secur oon Friendship is thus - pepe reteiremnrme’ | made the flower of Politics. Plato also makes friendship the ideal of the state, where all have common inter- ests and mutual confidence. And apart: from its place of prominence in systems — of thought, perhaps a finer list of beautifui ~ sayings about friendship could be culled | from ancient writers than from modern. Classical mythology also is full of instan=_ ie | ces of great friendship, which almost as-\ sumed the place of a religion itself. It is not easy to explain why its part in. i Christian ethics is so small in compari-— | son. The change is due to an enlarging ) of the thought and life of man. Modern i} ideals are wider and more impersonal, — just as the modern conception of the state is wider. The Christian ideal of | love even for enemies has swallowed up iq 16 i thics, and the root Spee a = ene = prhnimen on agi Som ae NT ee rae eR pene neers aE es a emanate T We i) TTS OE CTT ett. me 4 ASPEN Ra TAS old a Valetohd Es Bk Atha a : : i a Ny é " hi a eee Ge yr Tyee es SS f Spe Ea St : NOAM IW) De aa BT 218 ai i a My é Sx . (en a ES cs Nee e SLO TENE ERE A TEL CTD the narrower ideal of philosophic friend- ship. (Then possibly also the instinct finds satisfaction elsewhere in the mod- erm man. For example, marriage, in| more cases now than ever before, sup- plies the need of friendship. Men and women are nearer in intellectual pursuits and in common tastes than they have sver been, and can be in a truer sense companions. And the deepest explana- tion of all is that the heart of man re- ceives a religious satisfaction impossible before. Spiritual coriamunion makes a man less dependent on human inter- course. When the heaven is as brass and makes no sign, men are thrown back on themselves to eke cut their small stores of love. At the same time frietidship is not an Obsolete sentiment. (It is as true now as in Aristotle’s time that no one would care to live without friends, though he had all Other good things. It is still necessary to our life in its largest sense) The dan- ger of sneering at friendship is that it THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP us a a, may be discarded or neglected, not in the interests of a more spiritual affection, but to minister to a debased cynical self-in- dulgence.: (There is possible to-day, as (}> ever, a generous friendship which forgets tia AROMA self. / The history of the heart-life of man proves this. What records we have of » - such in the literature of every country! Peradventure for a good man men have even dared to die. Mankind has been glorified by countless silent heroisms, by unselfish service, and sacrificing love. Christ, who always took the highest ground in His estimate of men, and never once put man’s capacity for the noble on a low level, made the high-water mark of human friendship the standard of His — own great action, ‘‘ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his - life for his friends.”) This high-water | mark has often been reached. (Men have given themselves to each other, with nothing to gain, with no self-interest to. serve, and with no keeping back part of the price.) It is ‘ao to — to base I es. Ae oe VO CD Ce Pia PO ye a POEs TAO | THE MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP | HG SUS LOC W OS LW HO FU EO ROP NG MALE MMNUS NORE ONO LUO TG SU KO rae Y «Cans ih Ai TE Te Ss ss een a eneeneeanonmammonnes car life on selfishness, to leave out the listof = human motives the highest of all, (The fi miracle of friendship has been too often \I | i enacted on this dull earth of ours, to suf- IS 45) fer us to doubt either its possibility or its |) (| wondrous beauty. | K\ | 1H * The classic instance of David and Jonas | |) - > than répresents.the~typical ‘friendship. Nod | They met, and at the meeting knew each h\| y) other to be nearer than kindred. By Kooy subtle elective affinity they felt that they AY 4 belonged to each other. Out of all the N t y, chaos of the time and the disorder of |~ ~~ their lives, there arose for these two souls AN. a new and beautiful world, where there ih | ) reigned peace, and love, and sweet con- WU YZ) tent. It was the miracle of the death of Ing ay self.. Jonathan forgot his pride, and | | fl David his ambition. It was as the smile eZ of God which changed the world to | i i fl them. One of them it saved from the Sy | i temptations of a squalid court, and the i > | other from the sourness of an exile’s life. | Jonathan’s princely soul had no room for NOY ie ‘s ae ——— \4 Se envy or jealousy. David’s frank nature j 19 A | zi Say EWR mn = a Wait TRUS Y- AR } Y PIEDE Sa LP IVY Sie vy IOS A = Oks “oo letead| ES = ; >a = =r ~s ~ : ae Ox Py tC EO a TPN A ON ta aU tren nae = *: 35 rae Soo it A woe ‘ sc euppainesncon:eciosinarsateie eee eee OE A > is Lt) Enger nannnine Ee : oe ee NY, soe E i | sos eirsnoehen vnsendscnetnantyrtwasinencstatssoni reir mseonesezaaeneeeeeeee mas compnppvcascmmabes ocean entbaneria eacuenaneponnamnonrasigemb napus a nner ge ae et aE en = ae en ein ena Ph ers ee a ii aca se anid rose to meet the riapanttinele. of his friend.” In the kingdom of love there was ne disparity between the king’s son and the shepherd boy. Such a gift as each gave and received is not to be bought or sold. It was the fruit of the innate nobility of both: it softened and tempered a very trying time for both. Jonathan with- stood his father’s anger to shield his friend: David was patient with Saul for his son’s sake. They agreed to be true to each other in their difficult position. Close and tender must have been the bond, which had such fruit in princely — generosity and mutual loyalty of soul. Fitting was the beautiful lament, when David’s heart was bereaved at tragic Gil- boa, ‘‘I am distressed for thee, my brother — Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been — unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, — passing the love of women.” Love is — always wonderful, a new creation, fair and fresh to every loving soul. It is the : miracle of spring to the cold dull earth. 20. a arr tar rone es nde ereertty naire da sari coms cr aa ic a mn ASEAN Wiriry . Zi OUR NOS a5 ; PAO ai de SS mise a BV NG SHV iy CI , AIG - ES NE nS AA TA eae) lal IRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP (| | mE PMP ANP ME ee Mom a ener When Montaigne wrote his essay on Friendship, he could do little but tell the story of his friend. The essay continu- | ally reverts to this, with joy that he had | been privileged to have such a friend, with sorrow at his loss. Itisachapter of his heart. There was an element of necessity about it, as there is about all account for it. It came to him without — effort or choice. It wasa miracle, butit _ happened. ‘‘If a man should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, | can only answer, because it was he, be- cause it was I.” It was as some secret appointment of heaven. They were both grown men when they first met, and death separated them soon. ‘‘If I should compare all my life with the four years I had the happiness to enjoy the sweet so- ciety of this excellent man, it is nothing but smoke; an obscure and tedious night from the day that I lost him. I have led a sorrowful and languishing life ever since. I was so accustomed to be al- 21 ! Ta ed a OC ON eT LUG DPE CCI LN PIC GG Cd CO RAGE IRAE TY Ee ere la mvyie SEE RTTTAT RUT POPOL T AP ST Gana HAY) (LF GV SCY TOF SCY Ce Ne EN CPL De Va voto Ve y Lied DN ON Pe n : OX: Dhar hve ¥ 73 - : : , ANE FL DEE De Coe ; 5 OW RRS “s Py as PwWl > Ob oA AD AN 4 , the great things of life. He could not | TY mene LPS emebs aia >) SCPC Ma | ways his second in all places and in all interests, that methinks | am now no more than half a man, and have but half a being.” We would hardly expect such passion of love and regret from the easy- going, genial, garrulous essayist. he joy-that comes from a true com- union of heart with another is perhaps one of the purest and greatest in the world, but its function is not exhausted by merely giving pleasure. Though we — may not be conscious of it, there is a deeper purpose in it, an education in the highest arts of living.) We may be en- ticed by the pleasure it affords, but its greatest good is got by the way. Even intellectually it means the opening of a door into the mystery of life. Only love understands after all. It gives insight. We cannot truly know anything without sympathy, without getting out of self and entering into others. A man cannot be a true naturalist, and observe the ways 2 ~, Niles Sf, “s = im 5 reid BX S a Re A me Ihe pte Seb ns Ae eA AAR PAAR AAA RN EE nN ES YATE FORTS TS TI RT of birds and insects accurately, unless he i : can watch long and lovingly. We can 22 Diey pie OOULe KOAOI0C/ UVa. Dy J PVOOV OVS SAV AW ANEW w Rew WILE TOOLS || ie wi eater 9 be Bop ame mer Ae RL a wy ee RRP OE Ae Ih SE LS VOUAA IIIS a eenreretenent ‘THE “MIRACLE C OF ‘FRIENDSHIP never know children, unless we love them. Many of the chambers of the house of life are forever locked to us, | until love gives us the key. _/ To learn to love all kinds of nobleness gives insight into the true significance of things, and gives a standard to settle their relative importance. {An uninter- ested spectator sees nothing, or, what is worse, sees wrongly. Most of our mean estimates of human nature in modern lit- erature, and our false realisms in art, and our stupid pessimisms in philosophy, are due to an unintelligent reading of surface facts. Men set out to note and collate impressions, and make perhaps a scien- tific study of slumdom, without genuine interest in the lives they see, and there- fore without true insight into them. They miss the inwardness, which love alone can supply. ' If we look without love we can only see the outside, the mere form and expression of the subject studied. Only with tender compassion and loving sympathy can we see the 2 tal i heineue even in the eye dull ene weene \.) ing and in the fixed face pale with care. _ bt Hail We will often see noble patience shining eZ through them, and loyalty to duty, and” Ay virtues and graces unsuspected by others. it Ae { The divine meaning of a true friendshi Ku sa is that it is often the first unveiling of fe i bani secret of love. It is not an end in itself, NG | Ly M (but has most of its worth in what it leads ony MH to, the priceless gift of seeing with the 0) \ heart rather than with the eyes.) Tolove | one soul for its beauty and grace and truth is to open the way to appreciate all beautiful and true and gracious souls, and to recognize spiritual beauty wher- ever it is seen. : /“ The possibility at least of friendship | ‘must be a faith with us. The cynical at- titude is an offence. It is possible to find in the world true-hearted, leal, and faith- ful dealing between man and man. To doubt this is to doubt the divine in life. i (Faith in man is essential to faith in God) Z| In spite of all deceptions and disillusion-— _ ments, in spite of all the sham fellow- bt 24 Nae x Ws [- aH pee oe pI ‘THE MIRACLE ¢ OF FRIENDSHIP a i eee es ix hei #35} m0 ¥ aie ee a Fe ete POPE ships, in spite of the faeente cases of self- interest and callous cruelty, we must keep clear and bright our faith in the possibilities of our nature. The man who hardens his heart because he has been imposed on has no real belief in virtue, and with suitable circumstances could become the deceiver instead of the de- ceived. (The great miracle of friendship with its infinite wonder and beauty may be denied to us, and yet we may believe in it. To believe that it is possible is enough, even though in its superbest form it has never come tous. To pos- sess it, is to, have one of the world’s . sweetest gifts) A Aristotle défines friendship as one ar abiding in two enc There is no ex- plaining such a relationship, but there is no denying it. It has not deserted the world since Aristotle’s time. Some of our modern poets have sung of it with as brave a faith as ever poet of old. What splendid monuments to friendship we possess in Milton’s Lycidas and Tenny- 25 TMS a ee 7 halts laivipsriiaelnicete van am aarraeeel ee MILI P TEU S PSNDT CT LES Hd Mal aks an att Sires ee a eh reba abun Jv aoe ei nee ee y son’s In Memoriam! In both there is the recognition of the spiritual power of it, as well as the joy and comfort it brought. The grief is tempered by an awed wonder and a glad memory. f “ The finest feature of Rudyard Kipling’ S work and it is a constant feature of it, is the comradeship between commonplace soldiers of no high moral or spiritual at- tainment, and yet it is the strongest force in their lives, and on occasion makes heroes of them. We feel that their faith- fulness to each other is almost the only point at which their souls are reached. The threefold cord of his soldiers, vulgar in mind and common in thought as they are, is a cord which we feel is not easily broken, and it is their friendship and loy- alty to each cules which save them from utter vulgarity... In Walt Whitman there is the same in. sight into the force of friendship in ordi- nary life, with added wonder at the miracle of it. He is the poet of com- rades, and sings the ate of compa 2 ae Wa wie CULE bie ‘ ROR HC ree WE ‘THE _MIRACLE OF FRIENDSHIP | ae pales ship more than any other theme. He ever comes back to the lifelong love of comrades. The mystery and the beauty of it impressed him. eae **O tan-faced prairie-boy, Before you came to camp came many a welcome gift, t} . Praises and presents came and nourishing food, till at lat 8 = = among the recruits Hivac@a at You came, taciturn, with nothing to give—we but looked on Lae each other, When lo! more than all the gifts of the world you gave me.” oe ' After all, in spite of the vulgar material- ism of our day, we do feel that the spir- itual side of life is the most important, and brings the only true joy. And friends ship in its essence is spiritual. Itisthe? = free, spontaneous outflow of the heart, Ny 4 “Al and is a gift from the great Giver.» = 9, | | ; Friends are born, not made./ At least, : it is so with the higher sort. The mar- | Mi riage of souls is a heavenly mystery, AK ig which we cannot explain, and which we need not try to explain. Themethodby = which it is brought about differs very “| much, and depends largely on temper= ea Gaal EES : aD peiriea: THE MIRACLE OF ERI ENDSHIP i ament. {Some friendships grow, and ripen slowly and steadily with the years. _/\\, We cannot tell where they began, or THe C. u LTURE OF ‘FRIENDSHIP \ most be called a treatise on Friendship, so full is it of ad- vice about the sort of persona | erst sede SMHE Book of Proverbs might al- h oX).0 fl S ' : young man should consort with, andthe = Hi\t yf sort of person he should avoid. It is full INN / of shrewd, and prudent, and wise, some- times almost worldly-wise, counsel. It =< ~ is caustic in its satire about false friends, __- | and about the way in which friendships... NM are broken. ‘The rich hath many jj!) LAN friends,” with an easily understood im- is PAI plication concerning their quality. ‘‘Every | man is a friend to him that giveth gifts,” is its sarcastic comment on the ordinary = motives of mean men.° Its picture of the 9 356 Ate BAL Oo ters carat car DEMIS CY IAC VOIECY JAC VR } 21} V4 » APY S2V¥ “ GPO Ay CPG PSF 5ON VL DNA oi cena : = se fi i | i) a | ; ws = Sed Sor = em plausible, fickle, lip-praising, and time-— serving man, who blesseth his friend — with aloud voice, rising early in the morning, is a delicate piece of satire. The fragile connections among men, as easily broken as mended pottery, get il- lustration in the mischief-maker who loves to divide men. ‘*A whisperer sep- arateth chief friends.” There is keen irony here over the quality of ordinary — friendship, as well as condemnation of © the tale-bearer and his sordid soul. This cynical attitude is so common that we hardly expect such a shrewd book to — speak heartily of the possibilities of hu- man friendship. Its object rather is to — put youth on its guard against the dan- | gers and pitfalls of social life. It gives — sound commercial advice about avoiding | becoming surety for a friend. It warns | against the tricks, and cheats, and bad © faith, which swarmed in the streets of a’ | city then, as they do still. It laughs, a | little bitterly, at the thought that friend-— ship can be as a as the eager, gen- | 3 A a ALY a Reese ws SAS OOS ——— ee os and like them is often let slip. We have | the opportunities, but we do not make use of them. \Most men make friends bay se : 2m Pd : lel] a he } 44) | ; ag Ha a eee A LA ene ui oe f i cp miphy very, vir rope en stay get \h il Ay Pe ina na ~—. SSS acon eaeeenaioansnsgi—anuesaravesodnamenercoiee nn ne rn A NEE THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP easily enough: few keep them) They do not give the subject the care, and thought, and trouble, it requires and de- serves. We want the pleasure of society, without the duty. We would like to get, the good of our friends, without burdens ing ourselves with any responsibility about keeping them friends. The com- monest mistake we make is that we spread our intercourse over a mass, and have no depth of heart left. We lament that we have no staunch and faithful friend, when we have really not expended the love which produces such. We want to reap where we have not sown, the fatuousness of which we should see as soon as it is mentioned. ‘‘She that asks her dear five hundred friends” (as Cow- per satirically describes a well-known type) cannot expect the exclusive affec- tion, which she has not given. he secret of friendship is just the se- cret of all spiritual blessing. The way to} get is to give.) The selfish in the end can — never get anything but selfishness. The 4l I 4a J Et Pe Boh Senet ee ee vi PO na SED TCU AD VD ee ND VLD ee or ee eer Bohaet peacoat OF FRIENDSHIP ‘ie AAI DUC oT ie Ee DV A Toile a a | hard find hardness everywhere. As you “\7 mete, it is meted out to you. |, Some men have a genius for friend- “ship. That is because they are open, ‘and responsive, and unselfish. — They truly make the most of life; for apart. from their special joys, even intellect is sharpened by the development of the af- fections. No material success in life is comparable to success in friendship. We really do ourselves harm by our selfish standards. There is an old Latin prov- erb,’ expressing the worldly view, which says that it is not possible for a man to love and at the same time to be wise. This is only true when wisdom is made equal to prudence and selfishness, and when love is made the same. Rather it is never given to a man to be wise in the true and noble sense, until he is carried out of himself in the purifying passion of love, or the generosity of friendship. | The self-centred being cannot keep _ | friends, even when he makes them; his / Pale 3 *y ~ = 4 putes ‘ mo <7) we SR, Sy are MF ee ia TAN Ni - mis SS EAS —— = i > & TSS — aan ae gis fe ae 4 PF Z Sof \ Theo Fn et ume pore § Non simul cuiquam conceditur, amare et sapere. 42 Mu eam Aue mUNo ne OD WReI ese): be > pce eat eee Te § i) ia THATS VINO VCCI we en ee en trees Toe. . Day Lae See ener erert eee ALC ROR OW TG THE CULTURE 0 OF FRIENDSHIP selfish sensitiveness is always in the way, like a diseased nerve ready to be irritated. | The culture of friendship is a duty, as ne | every gift represents a responsibility. It . | is also a necessity; for without watchful Wa care it Can no more remain with us than es can any other gift. Without cultureitis = at best only a potentiality. Wemaylet it slip, or we can use it to bless our lives. The miracle of friendship, which came at first with its infinite wonder and beauty, wears off, and the glory fades = into the light of common day. The early charm passes, and the soul forgets the first exaltation. We are always in Z| danger of mistaking the common for the : commonplace. We must not look upon it merely as the great luxury of life, or it will cease to be even that. It begins with » emotion, but if it is to remain it must be-_ Al come a habit. Habit is fixed when an accustomed thing is organized into life; and, whatever be the genesis of friend- : ship, it must become a habit, or itisin | ay/|\ 43 ML Wal : ‘e jb eae Ne al if | kee) ‘nee a i} TW) IS AG i } Die LO ry EU Bias aA yay is AG | Fe i LOY: DEREOY as LO, SON ORAL, YS _> » Friendship needs delicate handling. >, We can ruin it by stupid blundering at oy) 9) the very birth, and we-can kill it by Hl] | iit} neglect. It is not every flower that has OSS | vitality enough to grow in stony ground. (Lack of reticence, which is only the out- ward sign of lack of reverence, is respon=_ IGayiwe | sible for the death of many a fair friend- > ship. Worse still, it is often blighted at la i the very beginning by the insatiable de- tla Cl sire for piquancy in talk, which can for- Wea SM get the sacredness of confidence. ‘An ny fi acquaintance grilled, scored, devilled, and WAS _/ served with mustard and cayenne pep- hy ‘Wi per, excites the appetite; whereas a slice yy if given to the man who is not worthy to _. hever know the joy of a friendship, for il the keeping of which he is not able to _ fulfill the essential conditions, Here also ay | ’ ® Thackeray, Roundabout Papers. . : wae |p ReSttar atest raner : est RE E OF FRIENDSHIP Lae oxd Ses eecancresttnlae se ; ar peret namtass Mc MT ee S ane = ea s Sse sscrerssonenene pA hi icinetonmmererwatiocticiest age Lek each! are eR bate Ree = = = momen ean Ree eee a a arene amen Seana TNR TENSE SS aS danger of passing away as other impres- sions have done before. of cold friend with currant jelly is but a sickly, unrelishing meat.”? Nothing is possess it, and the shallow heart can THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP it is true that from the man that hath not, is taken aay even that which he hath. : _ The method for the culture of friend- ship finds its best and briefest summary in the Golden Rule. To do to, and for, _ your friend what you would have him _ do to, and for, you, is a simple compen- _ dium of the whole duty of friendship. _ The very first principle of friendship is that it is a mutual thing, as among spirit- ual equals, and therefore it claims reci- procity, mutual confidence and faithful- ness. There must be sympathy to keep in touch with each other, but sympathy needs to be constantly exercised. Itisa channel of communication, which has to be kept open, or it will soon be clogged and closed. The practice of sympathy may mean the cultivation of similar tastes, though that will almost naturally follow from the fellowship. But to cultivate similar | tastes does not imply either absorption of one of the partners, or the identity of 45 i> 4 ' Ve , Nos terest H Ly E CUL BE. _ both. Rather, part of the charm of the >. intercourse lies in the difference, which Ht pi exists in the midst of agreement. What ox. is essential is that there should be a real i ¥| | desire and a genuine effort to understand Hh w each other. It is well worth while tak- Kora ing pains to preserve a relationship so INTP\AN full of blessing to both. lay ) WH Here, as in all connections among men, eee there is also ample scope for patience, | \¥ | | When we think of our own feed for the constant exercise of this virtue, we will admit its necessity for others. After the first flush of communion has passed, we must see in a friend things which detract from his worth, and perhaps things which irritate us. This is only to say that no man is perfect. With tact, and tender- ness, and patience, it may be given us to help to remove what may be flaws ina fine character, and in any case it is fool- ish to forget the great virtues of our friend in fretful irritation at a few blem- ishes. We can keep the first ideal in our memory, even if We know that it is not 4 RBS OAL AOS MeO MOINeL wie fsa); SUEW Ieee Bits eh Pe =e 717? TU OTT o TTT? TANTEI PROP rey We BUOLDIAN Ea Anan, Vieni a SSIS EON SENT SE EOCENE ey - intercourse be coarsened, but must keep it sweet and delicate, that it may remain a refuge from the coarse world, a sanc- tuary where we leave criticism outside, and can breathe freely. ; sipeepiciacy | alone, if our attitude to men is one of armed neutrality, if we are suspicious, and assertive, and querulous, and over- cautious in our advances P Suspicion kills friendship. There must be some mag- | nanimity and openness of mind, before a | friendship can be formed. We must be | servedly. | advances, because they are naturally more } trustful. A beginning has to be made ' somehow, and if we are moved to enter | Into personal association with another, \\we must not be too cautious in display- |) ing our feeling.) If we stand off in cold | reserve, the ice, which trembled to thaw- 4] yet an actual fact. We must not let our ~ Trust is the first requisite for making | ht a friend. How can we be anything but | willing to give ourselves freely and unree Some find it easier than pines to make | ‘if (2 He le fil pai 14 ) wit neo Bote naar apicasertgycrneeaesar saa inher renee a ten nn erent cen ere aey es ee paneer wean: SoA bent ae BN BODE DURE T ag ie on SOE ~ one ner — Saemenenaniniinmaininnnenn setae es en OT Naat Rewer ing, is ey again by the black hand of frost. There may be a golden mo- ment which has been lost through a foolish reserve. We are so afraid of giving ourselves away cheaply—and it is a proper enough feeling, the value of which we learn through sad experience —but on the whole perhaps the warm nature, which acts on impulse, is of a higher type, than the over-cautious na- ture, ever on the watch lest it commit itself. We can do nothing with each other, we cannot even do business with each other, without a certain amount of trust. Much more necessary is it in the beginning of a deeper intercourse. And if trust is the first requisite for ; pi ‘making a friend, faithfulness is the first requisite for keeping him); The way to vhave a friend is to be afriend. Faithful-— ness is the fruit of trust. We must be ready to lay*hold of every opportunity — which occurs of serving our friend. Life is made up to most of us of little things, and many a neg withers through - sheer neglect. Hearts are alienated, be- cause each is waiting for some great oc- casion for displaying affection. The great spiritual value of friendship lies in the opportunities it afforded for service, and if these are neglected it is only to be expected that the gift should be taken from us. \Friendship, which begins with sentiment," will not~-live and thrive on sentiment. There must be loyalty, which finds expression in service. It is not the greatness Of the help, or the intrinsic _ value of the gift, which gives it its worth, but the evidence itis of love and thought- - fulness cess in every sphere of life, and little _kindnesses, little acts of considerateness, little appreciations, little confidences, are all that most of us are called on to per- form, but they are all that are needed to keep a friendship sweet. Such thought- fulness keeps our sentiment in evidence to both parties. If we never show our kind feeling, what guarantee has our 49 a a ie ener a TE DTE TAG IE Ie 20s ! SUA PNG RL SNe a Ra a gE Ua oo de Saad Sat oe act te ia Attention to detail is the secret of suc- at THE CULTURE 0 OF FRIENDSHIP PPO ONO IWIKe DWT. 600 anata ote neem SR ee EN net He aN BN NE A Vase Tr i a nT A Te | friend, or even ourself, that it exists? Faithfulness in deed is the outward re- sult of constancy of soul, which is the rarest, and the greatest, of virtues. If there has come to us the miracle of friendship, if there is a soul to which our soul has been drawn, it is surely worth while being loyal and true. Through the little occasions for helpfulness, we are training for the great trial, if it should ever come, when the fabric of friendship will be tested to the very foundation. The culture of friendship, and its abiding worth, never found nobler expression than in the beautiful proverb,’ ‘A friend ) \loveth at all times, and is a brother born /for adversity.” Most men do not deserve such a gift from heaven. They look upon it as a convenience, and accept the privilege of love, without the responsibility of it. They even use their friends for their own. selfish purposes, and so never have true SHES friends. Some men shed friends at every NG hy tt * Proverbs xvii. 17, R. v. margin 4 ps is me yo Sa TS Sg, 3 af Pe B se a = ~ ont bet eee UMA MMLe ROL MWMewME NVC Le) ee io). DDG. gue f ri FUR =; BY RRO ee iy dik oF Lf. See + A mF Faeroe << Sosa Serer eenerag eee aay CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP a" . _ ae —<———— eure - - step they rise in the social scale.) It is mean and contemptible to merely use men, so long as they further one’s per- sonal interests. But there is a nemesis C) on such heartlessness. To such can) \). - never come the ecstasy and comfort of © | - mutual trust. This worldly policy can never truly succeed. It stands to reason Hii that they cannot have brothers born for adversity, and cannot count on the joy of , the love that loveth at all times; forthey | do not possess the quality which secures it. Fo act on the worldly policy, to treat a friend as if he might become an enemy, is of course to be friendless. ( To sacri- . : | = ae : i fice a tried and trusted friend for any personal advantage of gain or position, is | to deprive our own heart of the capacity for friendship. The passion for novelty will sometimes | lead a man to act like this. Some shallow minds are ever afflicted by a craving for _ Mew experiences. They sit very loosely _ to the past. They are the easy victims of the untried, and yearn perpetually for 51 | EE LEE ee wip Loe Nii@iniceit tim ee aaa Hacc Ces Le OWS Oe eens ett die nity) ea) fit | it all Wig M/) [ASL ZA ane Oe: ial i \ { ‘ fi Why vi Hal Hl HW Hel HAWS AI | es ati % Od yf Ky) & {7 i} ae | / ) ve ANE if 4 Pie 4 PES us L EN | ee oa ay } : i i ,) TONY Gees vee eg HS | Nor Pil aie Bes 1) BY dl HST) TPH BANC) IA A f Sie | h iia © all fie ae) fil) Mi Vo Pisth op 7 Dit i iy i Wal PS AOA ALE a 2) ae ae fpot peat | eee ie aay } Hy tf Dl af ih \f/ 3 P i ft } ‘ if t HAN Bae At begets } Peay {aN j il MD EAL at % : auth TE wLEOH: 917; ALERT EET xo ieooete Shes eee prsdigiatadiemnemapguciemapipdcacarareceericr a ere RET ens ~~ — — ee ne we cma A ee $ a pe NOE TTI seein at TN a a ee Ne es beeps novel sensations. In this matter of friendship they are ready to forsake the old for the new. They are always find- ing a swan in every goose they meet. | They have their reward in a widowed — : heart. Says Shakespeare in his grea manner,— : “ The friends thou hast and their adoption tried, Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel, : But do not dull thy palm with entertainment _ Of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.” ‘ The Culture of friendship must pass _into the Consecration of friendship, if it is to reach its goal. It is a natural evo- ‘lution. Friendship cannot be permanent — unless it becomes spiritual. There mus be fellowship in the deepest things of the soul, community in the highest thoughts sympathy with the best endeavors. We are bartering the priceless boon, if w are looking on friendship merely as luxury, and not as a spiritual oppor. tunity. It is, or can be, an occasion f growing in grace, for learning love, for training the heart to patience and fait f —————— OO - * ee nee eens aaoeeee SS _. for knowing the joy of suaible service. We are throwing away our chance, if we are not striving to be an inspiring and healthful environment to our friend. We are called to be our best to our friend, that he may be his best to us, bringing out what is highest and deepest in the nature of both. The culture of friendship is one of the | i approved instruments of culture of the heart, without which a man has not truly come into his kingdom. It is often only the beginning, but through tender and careful culture it may be an educa- tion for the larger life of love. It broad- ens out in ever-widening circles, from the particular to the general, and from the general to the universal—from the in- dividual to the social, and from the social to God. The test of religion is ultimately a very simple one. If we do not love those whom we have seen, we cannot love those whom we have not seen. All our sentiment about people at a distance, and our heart-stirrings for the distressed and oppressed, and our prayers for the heathen, are pointless and fraudulent, if we are neglecting the occasions for serv- ice lying to our hand, If we do not love our brethren here, how can we love our brethren elsewhere, except as a pious sentimentality P And if we do not love those we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen? This is the highest function of friend- ship, and is the reason why it needs thoughtful culture. We should be led to God by the joy of our lives as well as by the sorrow, by the light as well as by the darkness, by human intercourse as well as by human loneliness. He is the Giver of every good gift.- We wound His heart of love, when we sin against love. The more we know of Christ's spirit, and the more we think of the meaning of God’s fathomless grace, the more will. we be convinced that the way to road the Father and to follow the Son is to cultivate the graces of kindliness and | gentleness and tenderness, to give our- | ines (@pPRwITAC et @), AEB TH OL SAE D Bplay ADT RUE oo aie QI — a : fe Sh) a THE CULTURE OF FRIENDSHIP D, a is selves to the culture of the heart. Notin the ecclesiastical arena, not in polemic for a creed, not in self-assertion and dis- putings, do we please our Master best, — but in the simple service of love. To. seek the good of men is to seek the glory of God. They are not two things, but one and the same.) To bea strong hand | in the dark-to another in the time of need, to be a cup of strength to a human © soul in a crisis of weakness, is to know the glory of life. To be a true friend, saving his faith in man, and making him | believe in the existence of love, is to save © his faith in God... And such service is © possible for all. We need not wait for the great occasion and for the exceptional opportunity. We can never be without our chance, if we are ready to keep the miracle of love green in our hearts by humble service. “ The primal duties shine aloft like stars. The charities that soothe and heal and bless, Are scattered at the feet of man like flowers.” 59 “FRUITS @ f OF FRIENDSHIP §f Sao ‘Two are betier than one; because they have a good reward — for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fel- | low: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath | not another tohelphimup. And tf one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord ts not siege : broken.’’—EcCCLESIASTES. H [0 friend, my bosom satd, Through thee alone the sky is arched, Through thee the rose ts red, All things through thee take nobler abe : And look beyond the earth, Z And ts the mill-round of our fate, A sun-path in thy worth. Me too thy nobleness has taught To master my despatr; Bata fara, oe The fountains of my hidden life pk Ae Are through thy friendship fatr.” et ee Easxsow. Se —— Ven NM | our utilitarian age things are judged by their practical value. Men ask of everything, What is its use? Nothing is held to be outside criticism, neither the law because of its authority, nor religion because of its sacredness. Every relationship in life also has been questioned, and is asked to show the reason of its existence. Even ‘some relationships like marriage, for long held to be above question, are put into the crucible. On the whole it is a good spirit, though it can be abused and carried to an absurd extreme. Criticism is inevita- ble, and ought to be welcomed, provided 99 KDALY OS : FRUITS Digits TBI aes RIES seipenenay owe besrecesansticdietegeacer ecto wea e IT See ee renee reennneicers SN a a a Oa OEE bh hen ener no pr neo nes we are careful about the true standard to _ apply. When we judge a thing by its use, we must not have a narrow view of what utility is. Usefulness to man is not confined to mere material values.) The common standards of the market-place cannot be applied to the whole of life. | The things which cannot be bought can- not be sold, and the keenest valuator would be puzzled to put a price on some of these unmarketable wares. When we seek to show what are the fruits of friendship, we may be said to | put ourselves in line with the critical | spirit of our age. But even if it were | proven that a man could make more of | his life materially by himself, if he gave | no hostages to fortune, it would not fol- | low that it is well to disentangle oneself | from the common human bonds; for our | caveat would here apply, that utility is} larger than mere material gain. | But even from this point of view friend- | ship justifies itself. Two are better than — one; be they He a good reward for CO f wi ee ci TROY ITY Tee ies THE | FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP their labor. The principle of association in business is now accepted universally. It is found even to pay, to share work — and profit. Most of the world’s business | is done by companies, or partnerships, or associated endeavor of some kind. And the closer the intimacy between the men | so engaged, the intimacy of common de- sires and common purposes, and mutual respect and confidence, and, if possible, friendship, the better chance there is for _ Success. Two are better than one from | the point of view even of the reward kK of each, and a threefold cord is not © quickly broken, when a single strand i would snap. i When men first learned, even in its Ne iit fj most rudimentary sense, that union is | Strength, the dawn of civilization began. te For offence and for defence, the princi-| ple of association early proved itself the fittest for survival. The future is al- ~- Ways with Isaac, not with Ishmael—with | Jacob, not with Esau. In everything this i {s seen, in the of races, or trad =) eerie . — secon aces sma OPEC CC Ie UTC RO ON DAE r LIS Pine Be, i SOUS vs y : 2 suheatpocumechaanos seersniron Inia wn ee - a Nh an a wT Sorte ship may be cone and unspeakably or ideas. Even as a teligious method te make an impact on the world, it is true. John of the Desert touched here a life, — and there a life; Jesus of Nazareth, seek- ing disciples, founding a society, moved the world to its heart. It is not necessary to labor this point, that two are better than one, to a com- mercial age like ours, which, whatever it does not know, at least knows its arith- metic. We would say that it is self-evi- dent, that by the law of addition it is double, and by the law of multiplication twice the number. But it is not so exact as that, nor so self-evident. When we are dealing with men, our ready-reckonet rules do not work out correctly. In this region one and one are not always two. They are sometimes more than two, and sometimes less than two. Union of all kinds, which may be strength, may be weakness. It was not till Gideon weeded out his army, once and twice, that he was. promised victory. The fruits of friend- aa aaa I THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP as mee me evil to the life. The reward of the labor of two may be less than that of one. The boy pulling a barrow is lucky if he _ get another boy to shove behind, but if the boy behind not only ceases to shove, but sits on the barrow, the last end is worse than the first. A threefold cord with two of the strands rotten is worse than a single sound strand, for it deceives into putting too much weight on it. In social economics it is evident that so- ciety is not merely the sum of the units that compose it. Two are better than one, not merely because the force is doubled. It may even be said that two are better thantwo. Two together mean more than +.vo added singly ; fora new element is introduced which increases the power of each individually. When the man Friday came into the life of Rob- inson Crusoe, he brought with him a great deal more than his own individual value, which with his lower civilization would no¢ be very much. But to Robin- son Crusoe he represented society, and 3 sana wana sean oon pun a eavenaenchenaieieommanet ete all the ossibilities of social polity. It meant also the satisfaction of the social instincts, the play of the affections, and made Crusoe a different man. The two living together were more than the two living on different desert islands. The truth of this strange contradiction of the multiplication table is seen‘in the . relationship of friends. Each gives to the © other, and each receives, and the fruit of the intercourse is more than either in hi | self possesses. Every individual relation- ship has contact with a universal. To reach out to the fuller life of love is a — divine enchantment, because it leads to — more than itself, and is the open door — into the mystery of life. We feel our- — Selves united to the race and no longer © isolated units, but in the sweep of the — great social forces which mould mankind. — Every bond which binds man to man is — a new argument for the permanence of — life itself, and gives a new insight into its — meaning. Love is the pledge and the promise of the future. Te ert n s et ee Fe are / ers come nem Besides this cosmic and perhaps some~ what shadowy benefit, there are many practical fruits of friendship to the indi- vidual. These may be classified and sub- divided almost endlessly; and indeed in Hl} every special friendship the fruits of it cl) will differ according to the character and | closeness of the tie, and according tothe particular gifts of each of the partners. i One man can give to his friend some _ i quality of sympathy, or some kind of help, or can supply some social need _ which is lacking in his character or cir- | cumstances. Perhaps it is not possible — to get a better division of the subject than - the three noble fruits of friendship which + | }\ Bacon enumerates—peace in the affec- it tions, support of the judgment, and aid } in all actions and occasions. First of all there is the satisfaction of! the heart. We cannot live a self-centre life, without feeling that we are missing the true glory of life. We were made for social REET G HSS if only that the ae = highest auaiities of-‘our nature might have an opportunity for development.) The joy, which a true friendship gives, re= veals the existence of the want of it, per- haps previously unfelt. It is a sin against ourselves to let our affections wither. This sense of incompleteness is an argu= ment in favor of its possible satisfaction; our need is an argument for De fulfillment. Qur_hearts demand ] ruly as our jbodies demand _ food. We cannot live aifiong men, suspicious, and careful of our own interests, and fighting for our own hand, without doing dishonor and hurt to our own nature. To be for our= selves puts the whole world against us. To harden our heart hardens the heart of the universe. a | We need sympathy, and therefare we: crave for friendship. Even the most per= fect of the sons of men felt this need of intercourse of the heart. Christ, in one aspect the most self-contained of men showed this human longing 2!l throu His life. He ever sos “pportuniti for enlargement of heart—in His discie ples, in an inner circle within the circle, in the household of Bethany. ‘‘ Will ye also go away?’” He asked in the crisis. of His career. ‘‘Could ye not watch’ — with Me one houre” He sighed in His great agony. He was perfectly hu- man, and therefore felt the lack of friendship. The higher our relation- ships with each other are, the closer is the intercourse demanded. Highest of all in the things of the soul, we feel that the true Christian life cannot be lived in _ the desert, but must be a life among men, and this because it is a life of joy as well as of service. We feel that, for the rounding of our life and the completion of our powers, we need intercourse with our kind. Stunted affections dwarf the whole man. We live by admiration,’ | hope, and love, and these can be devel- — _ oped only in the social life. ___ The sweetest and most stable pleasures _ also are never selfish. They are derived from fellowship, from common tastes, renee q ' \/ FREE Pte; eer aatE and mutual srnpae Sympathy is not F a quality merely needed in adversity. Ite is needed as much when the sun shines. Indeed, it is more easily obtained in ad. versity than in prosperity. It is compar atively easy to sympathize with a friend’s © failure, when we are not so true-hearted - about his success. When aman is down in his luck, he can be sure of at least a certain amount of good-fellowship to which he can appeal. It is difficult to keep a little touch of malice, or envy, — out of congratulations. It is sometimes easier to weep with those who weep, — than ‘to rejoice with those who rejoice. — This difficulty is felt not with people eerie SSeS us, but with our equals. When a friend ; succeeds, Oey may be a certain regis : certain point is natural and Hepat A perfect friendship would not have room for such grudging sympathy,” but would rejoice more for the other’s success than for his own. The en-' vious, jealous man never can be a friend. His mean spirit of detraction _ and insinuating ill-will kills friendship at its birth. Plutarch records a witty remark about Plistarchus, who was | told that a notorious railer had spoken well of him. ‘‘PIl lay my life,” said | he, ‘somebody :has told him I am | dead, for he can speak well of no man | living.” | For true satisfaction of the heart, there | must be a fount of sympathy from which to draw in all the vicissitudes of life, ) Sorrow asks for sympathy, aches to let its griefs be known and shared by a kin-; | dred spirit. To find such, is to dispel ' the loneliness from life. To havea heart which we can trust, and into which we | can pour our griefs and our doubts and | our fears, is already to take the edge from i : i ‘ ‘Ripaagvaeaniannemvny shade from fear. : | | Joy also demands that its joy should be _ Bhared. The man who has found his | | sheep that was lost calls together his _ 7 Mi neighbors, and bids them rejoice with | -. him because he has found the sheep that | was lost. Joy is more social than grief. — Some forms of grief desire only to creep : _ away into solitude like a wounded beast — hay _ to its lair, to suffer alone and to die alone. Ly | But joy finds its counterpart in the sun- shine and the flowers and the birds and — Wen the little children, and enters easily into fil ; = | grief, and the sting from doubt, and the all the movements of life. Sympathy will respond to a friend’s gladness, as iN | well as vibrate to his grief. A simple ALE generous friendship will thus add to the f joy, and will divide the sorrow. : The religious life, in spite of all the un< _ natural experiments of monasticism and _ all its kindred ascetic forms, is preémi- iy} uri) nently a-life of friendship. it is mace | vidual in its root, and social in its fruit It is when two or three are gathered t se Si Ne gether that religion becomes a fact for the world. The joy of religion will not be hid and buried in a man’s own heart. “Come, see a man that told me all that ever | did,” is the natural outcome of the first wonder and the first faith. It spreads from soul to soul by the impact of soul on soul, from the original impact of the great soul of God. Christ’s ideal is the ideal of a Kingdom, men banded together ina common cause, under common laws, serving the same purpose of love. It is meant to take ef- fect upon man in all his social relation- ships, in the home, in the city, in the state. Its greatest triumphs have been made through friendship, and it in turn has ennobled and sanctified the bond. The growth of the Kingdom depends on the sanctified working of the natural ties among men. It was so at the very start; John the’ Baptist pointed out the Christ to John the future Apostle and to An- drew; Andrew findeth his own brother Simon Peter; Philip findeth Nathaniel; vi! and so society through its network of re« | lations took into its heart the new mes- | sage. The man who has been healed must go and tell those who are at home, ) must declare it to his friends, and seek | that they also should share in his bream i discovery. ) The very existence of the Church asa |) body of believers is due to this necessity | of our nature, which demands oppor- | tunity for the interchange of Christian } sentiment. The deeper the feeling, the | ‘greater is the joy of sharing it with | another. There is a strange felicity, a wondrous enchantment, which comes | from true intimacy of heart, and close | communion of soul, and the result ig | more than mere fleeting joy. When itis | shared in the deepest thoughts and high- , All est aspirations, when it is built on a com-— mon faith, and lives by a common hope it brings perfect peace. No friendshi) has done its work until it reaches th supremest satisfaction of spirit com ice smencie bert eehsae ISLIP LPT RIT. WA Us AVILA (Gli steseeasseaae SA SF reece said ssununiaiidesieaiaiiadiinibaianieneemineiiieeiinnies al ‘friendship also gives satisfgction_of the ming.) Most men have a certain natural diffidence in coming to conclusions and I forming opinions for themselves. We rarely feel confident, until we have se- cured the agreement of othersin whom | We trust. There is always a personal | equation in all our judgments, so that we | feel that they require to be amended by | comparison with those of others. Doc- tors ask for a consultation, when a case becomes critical. We all realize the ad- _ | vantage of taking counsel. To ask for’ advice is a benefit, whether we follow eva the advice or no. Indeed, the best bene- fit often comes from the opportunity of Rie, testing our own opinion and finding it valid. Sometimes the very statement of ~~ the case is enough to prove it one thing > or the other. An advantage is reaped | from a sympathetic listener, even al- though our friend be unable to elu- _ Cidate the matter by his special sagacity see or experience. Friends in counsel gain Besides this satisfaction of the heart, Af ; : y 1 ua f VA 73 IAW TRA f Oe yal -- ee FAA etd fod mt 0 hea 2 ORE ONSET T FO SR EEL: oe — . i RMI ENC RTT 6 POA - ~T Tes “ ; ahaa ¥ DV gly } “A af ay = eal % : cox = ew ne tea meee pace hanplancion aa narnia ty es |) es Sf, fe = aa ‘ | 4 il accurately and securely. Through talk- é s eee were eae on Ss re on ETT po Geis Fa Fa TE I Te TST much intellectually. They acquire some-« thing approaching to a standard of judg- ment, and are enabled to classify opin- ions, and to make up the mind more jing a subject over with another, one | gets fresh side-lights into it, new | avenues open up, and the whole ques- | tion becomes larger and richer. Bacon ~ says, ‘‘Friendship maketh daylight in ‘the understanding, out of darkness and | confusion of thoughts: neither is this | to be understood only of faithful © counsel, which a man receiveth from his friend; but before you come to | that, certain it is, that whosoever hath | his mind fraught with many thoughts, | his wits and understanding do clarify — and break up in the communicating — and discoursing with another; he toss- — eth his thoughts more easily; he mar-_ shalleth them more orderly; he seeth | how they look when they are turned | into words; finally he waxeth wiser — than himself; and that more by an | THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP ee hour’s discourse than by a day’s meditae tion.” We must have been struck with the brilliancy of our own conversation and the profundity of our own thoughts, when we shared them with one, with ~ whom we were in sympathy at the time. _ The brilliancy was not ours; it was the reflex action which was the result of the communion. That is why the effect of different people upon us is different, one making us creep into our shell and mak- _ ing us unable almost to utter a word; an- other through some strange magnetism enlarging the bounds of our whole being and drawing the best out of us. The true insight after all is love. It clarifies the intellect, and opens the eyes to much that was obscure. | Besides the subjective influence, there may be the great gain of honest counsel. A faithful friend can be trusted not to speak merely soft words of flattery. It is often the spectator who sees most of the game, and, if the spectator is at the 72 same time keenly interested in us, he can have a more unbiased opinion than we can possibly have. He may have to say that which may wound our self-esteem; | he may have to speak for correction | rather than for commendation; but ‘‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend.” | The flatterer will take good care notto | offend our susceptibilities by too many | shocks of wholesome truth-telling; buta | friend will seek our good, even if he | must say the thing we hate to hear at the | time. a This does not mean thata friend should : always be what is called plain-spoken. — Many take advantage of what they call a true interest in our welfare, in order to rub gall into our wounds. The man who boasts of his frankness and of his hatred of flattery, is usually not frank—but only brutal. A true friend will never need lessly hurt, but also will never let slip oc- casions through cowardice. To spea the truth in love takes off the edge of u pleasantness, which often is found in 7 | TaN EEE TADS ONO e iE ia ae ae 2 Pimscstee CRO ue y meer eee ene ai SO rf : i POAC BUOY . mie LOTR as truth-speaking. And however the wound may smart, in the end we are thankful for the faithfulness which caused it. <‘‘Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head.” In our relations with each other, there is usually more advantage to be reaped from friendly encouragement, than from friendly correction. \ True criticism does not consist, as so many critics seem to think, in depreciation, but in apprecia- tion; in putting oneself sympathetically in another’s position, and seeking to value the real worth of his work.) There are More lives spoiled by undue harshness, than by undue gentleness. More good Work is lost from want of appreciation than from too much of it; and certainly it is not the function of friendship to de the critic's work. Unless carefully re- pressed, such a spirit becomes censori- Ous, or, worse still, spiteful, and has often been the means of losing a friend. fee THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP It is eS to be inde without giving crooked counsel, or oily flattery; and it is possible to be true, without magnify- ing faults, and indulging in cruel rebukes. ‘Besides the joy of friendship, and its | aid in matters of counsel, a third of its | noble fruits is the direct help it can give us in the difficulties of life. It gives strength to the character. It sobers and > steadies through the responsibility for each other which it means. When men face the world together, and are ready to stand shoulder to shoulder, the sense of © comradeship makes each strong. This_ help may not often be called into play, | but just to know that it is there if needed | is a great comfort, to know that if one fall the other will lift him up. The very word friendship suggests kindly help and aid in distress. Shakespeare applies the ~ word in King Lear to an inanimate thing with this meaning of helpfulness,— **Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel ; Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest.” Sentiment does not amount to much, o 78 | | THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP | it is not an inspiring force to lead to gen- _ tle and to generous deeds, when there is _ feed. The fight is not so hard, when w _ know that we are not alone, but that there are some who think of us, an _ pray for us, and would gladly help us i they got the opportunity. | __ Comradeship is one of the finest facts, _ and one of the strongest forces in life. A | mere strong man, however capable, and | however singly successful, is of little ace _ count by himself. There is no glamour of romance in his career. The kingdom of Romance belongs to David, not to Samson—to David, with his eager, im- _ petuous, affectionate nature, for whom three men went in the jeopardy of life to bring him a drink of water; ard all for love of him. It is not the selt-cen- tred, self-contained hero, who lays hold of us; it is ever the comradeship of heroes. Dumas’ Three Musketeers (and _ the Gascon who made a greater fourth), with their oath, *‘ Each for all, and all for | sach,” inherit that kingdom of Romance, 79 THE FRUITS oF ‘FRIENDSHIP i thoroughly and-boldly!” Yet that is just — ‘with others: Some things, needful to be | he is needed. A little thoughtfulness — Pita re Gly wir veun els: azo with all that ever have been tied in bands of love. Robertson of Brighton in one of his let- ters tells how a friend of his had, through cowardice or carelessness, missed an op- portunity of putting him right on a point with which he was charged, and so left him defenceless against a slander. With his native sweetness of soul, he contents — himself with the exclamation, ‘‘ How rare | it is to havea friend who will defend you . one of the loyal things a friend can do, sometimes when it would be impossible © for a man himself to do himself justice © said or done under certain circumstances, — cannot be undertaken without indelicacy by the person concerned, and the keen — instinct of a friend should tell him that would often suggest things that could be | done for our friends, that would make | them feel that the tie which binds us to || them is a real one. a man is rich in- 2 af _ THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP , deed, who possesses thoughtful, tactful friends, with whom he feels safe when present, and in whose hands his honor is secure when absent. If there be no loy-) alty, there can be no great friendship/ Most of our friendships lack the distinc- | tion of greatness, because we are | y ready for little acts of service. Withou these our love dwindles down to a mere sentiment, and ceases to be the inspiring force for good to both lives, which it was at the beginning. | The aid we may receive from friend- ship may be of an even more powerful, because of a more subtle, nature than material help. It may be a safeguard) against temptation. The recollection of a friend whom we admire is a great force to save us from evil, and to prompt us to good. The thought of his sorrow in any moral break-down of ours will often nerve us to stand firm. What would my friend think of me, if I did this, or consented to this meanness? Could I look him in the face again, and ie the calm pure gaze | ; ra (ees =| Ne fen i Sa a a a TN NNT ATS NI ER of his eye? Would it not bea blot on | our friendship, and draw a veil over our | intercourse? No friendship is worth the | name which does not elevate, and does | not help to nobility of conduct and to | strength of character. It should give a | new zest to duty, and a new inspiration | to all that is good. ‘Il Influence is the greatest of all human | gifts, and we all have it in some measure. | There are some to whom we are some- — thing, if not everything. There are some, who are grappled to us with hoops of steel. - There are some, over whom we have ascendency, or at least to whom we have access, who have opened the gates of the City of Mansoul to us, some we can sway with a word, a touch, a look. It must always be a solemn thing for a man to ask what he has done with this dread power of influence. For what has our friend to be indebted to us—for x00 or for evil? Have we put on his armo and sent him out with courage strength to the ‘ Or have 2 nore ihe eee oc eimioe: ogy nee ie qectennt e mgeneereere eerie, rancor a Tae pate per) dragged him down from the heights to which he once aspired P We are face to _ face here with the tragic possibilities of _ human intercourse. In all friendship we open the gates of the city, and those who have entered must be either allies in the fight, or treacherous foes. - All the fruits of friendship, be they blessed or baneful, spring from this root of influence, and influence in the long run is the impress of our réal character on tree bringeth forth good fruit, but a cor~ _ tupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. yy, 53 other lives. Influence cannot rise above , | the levél of our lives. The result of our, friendship on others will ultimately be | conditioned by the sort of persons we) _ are. It adds a very sacred responsibility _~ to life. Here, as in other regions, a good” “THE FRUITS OF FRIENDSHIP ky ; 4 f j ; A SSE LananeaeoReS ONT of ean is tested a sailing not by drifting, “The subject of the choice of 1 friendship is not advanced much by just | Ietting them choose us. That is to be- | | _ ‘come the victim, not the master of our | _ ‘circumstances. And while it is true that | we are acted on as much as we act, and | are chosen as much as we choose,\it is q “not permitted to any one merely to be | 9 passive, except at great cost. | | At the same time in the mystery of © _ friendship we cannot say that we went © about with a touchstone testing all we — met, till we found the ore that would re- — spond to our particular magnet. It is | not that we said to ourselves, Go to, we _ will choose a friend, and straightway + made a distinct election to the vacant — ~. throne of our heart. From one point of view we were absolutely passive. Things | arranged themselves without effort, and by some subtle affinity we learned that _ we had gained a friend. The history of every true friendship is the brief descrip- ips, thon of Emerson, ‘ ‘My friends have come | irl i (ae mst BD i Pee ris 5 lll ala, N wire ~ ~ ™ r cceatitl ment Tre eae COL ial eave t ici _ THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP to me unsought; the great God gave “them to me-”~~There-was-an element Of necessity in this, as in all crises of life. Does it therefore seem absurd and use- less to speak about the choice of friend- ship at alle By no means, because the princi re ourselves will determine the kind of friends we have, as truly as if the whole initiative lay with us. We are chosen for the same reason for which we would choose. To try to Separate the two processes is to make the same futile distinction, on a lower scale, so often made between choosing God and being chosen by Him. It is fue tile, because the distinction cannot be maintained. Besides, the value of having some defi- nite principle by which to test friendship is not confined to the positive attach- ments made. The necessity for a system of selection is largely due to the necessity for rejection. The good and great in- timacies of our life will perhaps come to 95 Vise <7 ‘, ~~~ 5) but not to all can we open the sanctuary | /quaintance, and speaking acquaintance, '/ through an endless series of kinds © ‘of intercourse to the perfect friendship. — us, as the wind bloweth, we cannot tell how. But by regulating our course wisely, we will escape from hampering our life by mistakes, and weakening it~ with false connections: We ought to be courteous, and kind, and gentle with all, of our heart. _ We have a graduated scale of intimacy, — from introduction, and nodding ace In counting up our gains and our re- | Sources, we cannot give them all the same — value, without deceiving ourselves. To expect loyalty and devotion from all alike | is to court disappointment. Most mis- anthropical and cynical estimates of man are due to this mingled ignorance and conceit. We cannot look for undyin affection from the crowd we may happen’ to have entertained to dinner, or hav rubbed shoulders with at business resorts or at social a Many men in 3 : ae THE CHOICE-OF FRIENDSHIP Rr 47 i I — life, as many are depicted in literature, have played the misanthrope, because they have discovered through adversity how many of their associates were fair= weather friends. In their prosperity they encouraged toadying and sycophancy. They liked to have hangers-on, who would flatter, and when the east wind blows they are indignant that their circle _ should prefer to avoid it. Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens is a typical misanthrope in his virtuous indig- ‘nation at the cat-like love of men for comfort. In his prosperity crowds of glass-faced flatterers bent before him, and were made rich in Timon’s nod. He wasted his substance in presents and hospitality, and bred a fine race of para- sites and trencher-friends. When he Spent all and began to be in want, no man gave unto him. The winter shower drove away the summer flies. He had loved the reputation for splendid liber= ality, and lavish generosity, and had sought to be a little god among men, be- : 97 stowing favors and receiving homage, all of which was only a more subtle form of selfishness. | When the brief day of | prosperity passed, men shut their doors — against the setting sun. The smooth | and smiling crowd dropped off with a shrug, and Timon went to the other ex- treme of misanthropy, declaimed against — friendship, and cursed men for their in- | gratitude. But after all he got what he © had paid for. He thought he had been | buying the hearts of men, and found that | he had only bought their mouths, and | tongues, and eyes. a ‘* He that loves to be flattered is worthy | of the flatterer.” For moral value there | is not much to choose between them. — Rats are said to desert the sinking ship, — which is not to be wondered at in rats, The choice of friendship does not mean | the indiscriminate acceptance of all who are willing to assume the name of friend. A touch of east wind is good, not onl to weed out the false and test the true,” but also to brace a man to the stern reali- are ties of life. When we find that some of our intimates are dispersed by adversity, instead of raving against the world’s in- gratitude like Timon, we should be glad that now we know whom exactly we can trust. - Another common way of choosing friends, and one which also meets with its own fitting reward, is the selfish method of valuing men according to their usefulness to us. To add to their credit, or reputation, some are willing to include anybody in their list of intimates. For business purposes even, men will some- times run risks, by endangering the peace of their home and the highest interests of those they love; they are ready to intro- duce into their family circle men whom they distrust morally, because they think they can make some gain out of the con- aection. All the stupid snobbishness, and mean tuft-hunting so common, are due to the same desire to make use of people in some way or other. It is an abuse of 99 Se the word friendship to done it to such social scrambling. Of course, even tuft- hunting may be only a perverted desire after what we think the best, a longing to get near those we consider of nobler nature and larger mind than common as- sociates. It may be an instinctive agree. ment with Plato’s definition of the wise | man, as ever wanting to be with him | who is better than himself. But in its usual form it becomes an unspeakable — degradation, inducing servility, and lick- — spittle humility, and all the vices of the — servile mind. There can never be true | friendship without self-respect, and un- — less soul meets soul free from self-seek- _ ing. If we had higher standards for our- _ selves, if we lived to God and not to | men, we would also find that in the | truest sense we would live with men. | We need not go out of our way to ingra- | tiate ourselves with anybody. Nothing | can make up for the loss of independence | and native dignity of soul. It is not for | a man, made in the image of God, to 100 Pa oa grovel, and demean himself before his fellow creatures. After all it defeats itself; for there can_/ only be friendship between equals. This\ | _does-not-mean equals in what is called — i social position, nor even in intellectual) — Vii attainments, though these naturally have ; | weight, but it means equality which has — a spiritual source. Can two walk to- | gether, except they be agreede Nor does it mean identity, nor even likeness. Indeed, for the highest unity there must be difference, the difference of free be- ings, with will, and conscience, and mind | unhampered. We often make much of our differences, forgetting that really we | differ, and can differ, only because we ‘agree. Without many points of contact, | there could be no divergence from these. | Argument and contradiction of opinion are the outcome of difference, and yet for argument there is needed a common basis. We cannot even discuss, unless we meet on some mental ground com- mon to both disputants. So there may 103 be, nay, for the highest unio be, a great general conformity behind the distinctions, a deep underlying common basis beneath the unlikeness. And for true union of hearts, this equality must have a spiritual source. If then there must be some spiritual affinity, agree- ment in what is best and highest in each, we can see the futility of most of the selfish attempts to make capital out of our intercourse. Our friends will be, be- cause they must be, our equals. Wecan never have a nobler intimacy, until we are made fit for it. All connections based on selfishness, either on personal pleasure or on useful- ness, are accidental. They are easily dissolved, because, when the pleasure or the utility ceases, the bond ceases, | When the motive of the friendship is re- | moved, the friendship itself disappears. he perfect friendship is grounded on what is permanent, on goodness, on | character. It is of much slower growth, since it takes some time to really find out 102 _ THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP the truly lovable things in a life, but it is lasting, since the foundation is eee The most important point, then, about/,”’ the choice of friendship is that we should | | know what to reject. Countless attrac- tions come to us on the lower plane. A man may be attracted by what his own conscience tells him to be unworthy. _ He may have slipped gradually into com- . panionship with some, whose influence | is even evil. He may have got, almost | without his own will, into a set which is . deteriorating his life and character. He . knows the fruits of his weakness, in the __ lowering of the moral tone, in the slack- | ening grip of the conscience, in the looser _ flow of the blood. He has become pli- ant in will, feeble in purpose, and flaccid in character. Every man has a duty to himself to be his own best self, and he can never be that under the spell of evil companionship. Some men mix in doubtful company, and say that they have no Pharisaic ex- clusiveness, and even sometimes defend 103 eo eabrany res pra cersccen ppremee sarees cent eNO eR oe - themselves by Christ’s example, who re- | ceived sinners and ate with them. The - comparison borders on blasphemy. It ~ depends on the purpose, for which sin- - || ners are received. Christ never joined in their sin, but went to save them from ' their sin; and wickedness could not lift | its "head in His presence. Some seek to | be initiated into the mysteries of iniquity, in idle or morbid curiosity, perhaps to write a realistic book, or to see life, as i# -) is called There is often a prurient de- ©. sire-to explore the tracts of sin, as if in- -} formation on such subjects meant wise ‘dom. If men are honest with them- selves, they will admit that they join the — “company of sinners, for the relish they | > have for the sin. We must first obey the ---- moral command to come out from among them and be separate, before it is possi- 4 ble for us to meet them like Christ. Separateness of soul is the law of holi- — ness. Of Christ, of whom it was said | that this man receiveth sinners, it was also said that He was separate from sinners _ THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom, neither is the counsel of sinners prudence. Most young men know the temptation here referred to, the curiosity to learn the hidden things, and to have the air of those who know the world. If we have gone wrong here, and have admitted into the sanctuary of our lives influences that make for evil, we must break away from them at all costs. The sweeter and truer relationships of our life should arm us for the struggle, the prayers of a mother, the sorrow of true friends. This is the fear, countless times, in the hearts of the folks at home when their boy leaves them to win his way in the city, the deadly fear lest he should fall into evil habits, and into the clutches of evil men. They know that there are men whose touch, whose words, whose very look, is contamination. To give them entrance into our lives is to submit ourselves to the contagion of sin. Friends should be chosen by a higher principle of selection than any worldly 105 > A young man may get opposing advice \ | weak submission to the evil influences of yy { AY eZ al acter, fot goodness, for truth and trust >» il} if | Wie with us in our best thoughts and holiest 977, ers when the first bloom fades: a rela- y Th ject to caprice. All purely earthly part- \ nerships, like all earthly treasures, are ex- © posed to decay, the bite of the moth and — ) SeupeabelLeniserhtombieiadnnmemeapaenaienensraeckarteciaserteaestesnetenausre ee ~~ ia Fe ao ER CR A A abo ere Te sage Rekntiatennetsateeieneeee NS asain aeaieeni one, of pleasure, or usefulness, or by our lot. *Phey‘should be chosen for char- We ‘worthiness, because they have sympathy ~ aspirations, because they have commu- _ nity of mind in the things of the soul. ~All other connections are fleeting and im= i g and im _ perfect from the nature of the case. A relationship based on the physical with- - tionship founded on the intellectual is ‘ only a little more secure, as it too is sub- _ the stain of the rust; and they must all have an end. y) from two equally trusted counsellors. | / One will advise him ‘to cultivate the | I Giendship of the clever, because they "| will afterward occupy places of powerin _ the world: the ape will advise him t ee _ THE CHOICE OF FRIENDSHIP re cultivate the friendship of the good, be- cause if they do not inherit the earth, they \ aspire to the heavens. . If he knows the \ character of the two counsellors, he will | understand why they should look upon life from such different standpoints; and later on he will find that while some of his friends were both clever and good, not one of the purely intellectual friend- ships remains to him. It does not afford | a sufficient basis of agreement, tostand == the tear and wear of life. The basis of / és friendship must be community of soul. § een comes through lack of acommon spiritual footing. If one soul goes up the moun- tain top, and the other stays down among the shadows, if the two have not the same high thoughts, and pure desires, and ideals of service, they cannot remain to- gether except in form. | Friends need not | ; be identical in temperament and capacity, |» ’ but they must be alike in sympathy.\ An unequal yoke becomes either an intoler- able burden, or will drag one of the part- 107 | The only permanent severance of heart If we choose our friends in Christ, neither \ _ here, nor ever, need we fear parting, and werestau ate i aa ae Soa Mise) “If you loved only what were worth your love, Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you.”” f hella cdensshedaites enn ESE ir tan rt arises penstiien oA andpiasaaneadnancatiman will have the secure joy and peace which come from having a friend who is as | one’ S own soul. cerwein Me RANN SRaO eet cee he IIIT Fi Sth Weep no more, woeful shepherds, weep no m For Lycidas, your sorrow 1s not dead, fs Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor, So sinks the day-star in the ocean bea hi And yet anon repairs his drooping head, And tricks his beams, and with new-spangled ore Flames in the forehead of the morning sky: So Lycidas sunk low, but mounted high, rad ey Through the dear might of Him that walked the — e . . . e waves.” fe ee aa at ; Mitton. rhea % ‘For Lycidas ts dead, dead ere his prime, Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer. 42 OR im Tr ( i pA) sake ‘ PS EFS EOE ITE IGT NSS TEE OE Ey ore z Fn a er TS ee TE eae sce Rn Se it is one of the greatest joys of life when a kindred soul is for the first time recognized and Lec claimed, so it is one of the bit- terest moments of life when the first rup- ture is made of the ties which bind us to) ‘other lives. Before it comes, it is hard to ‘ believe that it is possible, if we ever think of itatall. Whenitdoes come, itis harder ‘still to understand the meaning of the blow. The miracle of friendship seemed too fair, to carry in its bosom the menace of its loss. Weknew, of course, that such things had been, and must be, but we never quite realized what it wouldbetobe the victims of the common doom of man. | 111 S\) { | “fil ee | Ae | fii : j i } | LP baht § yy i 3 ; | 1 - Hi - einai ie PALL L AVAGO NARI e NM OL@ oie) © If it only came as a sudden pain, that passes after its brief spasm of agony, it would not be so sore an affliction; but when it comes, it comes to stay. There : remains a place in our hearts which is tender to every touch, and it is touched so often. We survive the shock of the — moment easier than the constant reminder of our loss. The old familiar face, de- barred to the sense of sight, can be re- called by a stray word, a casual sight, a chance memory. “The closer the inter- course had been, the more things there — are in our lives associated with him—_ things that we did together, places that : We visited together, thoughts even that we thought together. & There seems no region of life where we can escape from the suggestions of mem= ory. The sight of any little object can — bring him back, with his way of speak- ing, with his tricks of gesture, with all the qualities for which we loved him, an for which we mourn him now. [If th ANT acy was due to mere physical prox= Rye VIG EVN TOO V {aby SJ At OVI AON VON OPIN was a) IOS ia Tree? Seat - ‘THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP cee) ~ = = eT TS —— i, the loss will be only a vague sense of uneasiness through the breakdown of long-continued habit; but, if the two lives were woven into the same web, there must be ragged edges left, and it is _ a weary task to take up the threads again, and find a new woof for the warp. The closer the connection has been, the keener is the loss. It comes back to us at the sight of the many things associated with him, and, fill up our lives with countless distractions as we may, the shadow creeps back to darken the world. Sometimes there is the added pain of remorse that we did not enough ap- preciate the treasure we possessed In thoughtlessness we accepted the gift; _we had so little idea of the true value of his friendship; we loved so little, and were so impatient :—if only we had him back again; if only we had one more Opportunity to show him how dear he was; if only we had another chance of proving ourselves worthy. We can hardly forgive ourselves that we were | 113 M5 aR tan r LANE AF ed, | SN ar avarae } Fe = Al Saar so cold and selfish. Self-reproach, the regret of the unaccepted opportunity, is one of the commonest feelings after be+ reavement, and it is one of the most blessed Still, 1t may become a morbid feeling. It is a false sentimentalism which lives in the past, and lavishes its tenderness on ‘memory. It is difficult to say what i the dividing line between healthy sorrow — and morbid sentiment. It seems a nat ural instinct, which makes the bereave care lovingly for the very grave, an which makes the mother keep locked yy the little shoes worn by the little feet relics hid from the vulgar eye. The in stinct has become a little more morbi when it has preserved the room of a dead mother, with its petty decorations anc ornaments as she left them. Beautiful as the instinct may be, there is nothi so dangerous as when our most natu feeling turns morbid. a It is always a temptation, which gro ) Stronger the longer we live, to look back 14 q I aren Sp A@ANeaeUn PLOY wid i OM i BAe SINAN LIVI VO, NII: ie nee foo J ~ . — eee Li Sa and thus deride the present and distrust the future. We must not forget our present blessings, the love we still pos- sess, the gracious influences that remain, and most of all the duties that claim our strength. The loving women who went early in the morning to the sepulchre of the buried Christ were met with a re- buke, ‘‘Why seek ye the living among the dead?” They were sent back to life to find Him, and sent back to life to do honor to His death. Not by ointments and spices, however precious, nor at the rock-hewn tomb, could they best remem- ber their Lord; but out in the -world, which that morning had seemed so cold and cheerless, and in their lives, which then had seemed not worth living. Christianity does not condemn any nat- ural human feeling, but it will not let these interfere with present duty and destroy future usefulness. It does not send men to search for the purpose of living in the graves of their dead hopes and pleasures. 115 PH Sa SR SEES PAC OM, SSNS: ae THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP SEA pF om ERI IG La ey cermyeh nny Wohin vane - val at tap: ‘ i fet THE ECLI meV wat te if : eR S i st i : m4 } WP: ) " Bin Y So fae] Pith Poti ae FEAL gb ge] H a PA Fig OS | Rm FS me at } ‘ mer Pet Ay if See e aH WEY) An ist | i } fi} AW a an tee UWE iil rely! lee LA Le Ys a) Maat Bm OF ZO att Im OWAY All iP WSS et ey iY o4 Hat Fay fat WS | BA Peis + Wht HY Wi ia MN Hayate ay | im be nat ' \ < fry : iy ween: aad CAAT AK ese) x . i iit bart Pe Lt ES ae ip i if : Het ieee ; t ih eS He Ve von tas ¥ ie: 4 Aa ime H Hy f an es fe a \ % id oh 4; ERIE N fi bi ' (y HH iy Hit / if = ih : 4 He ; ji ih ; . Al § } : Yad Kod \ Hd Lj iy - rive 7 Its disciples must not attempt to live on the relics of even great incidents, among crucifixes and tombs. In the Desert, the heart must reach forward to the Prom- ised Land, and not back to Egypt. The Christian faith is for the future, because it believes in the God of the future. [T he world is not a lumber room, full of relics and remembrances, over which to brood. We are asked to remember the beautiful past which was ours, and the beautiful lives which we have lost, by making the present beautiful like it, and our lives beautiful like theirs. It is human to think that life has no future, if now it seems ‘dark with griefs and graves,’’ It comes like a shock to find that we must bury our sorrow, and come into contact with the hard world again, and live our com- mon life once more. The Christian learns ‘a to do it, not because he has a short mem- | ory, but because he has a long faith. The voice of inspiration is heard oftener through the realities of life, than through vain regrets and recluse dreams. The 116 Christian life must be in its degree some- thing like the Master’s own life, lumi- nous with His hope, and surrounded by a bracing atmosphere which uplifts all who even touch its outer fringe. The great fact of life, nevertheless, is death, and it must have a purpose to serve and a lesson to teach. It seems to lose something of its impressiveness, be- cause it is universal. The very inevi- tableness of it seems to kill thought, rather than induce it. It is only when the blow strikes home, that we are pulled up and forced to face the fact. Theo- retically there is a wonderful unanimity among men, regarding the shortness of life and the uncertainty of all human re- lationships. The last word of the wise on life has ever been its fleetingness, its appalling changes, its unexpected sur- prises. The only certainty of life is its uncertainty—its unstable tenure, its in- evitable end. But practically we goon as w we could lay our plans, and mort- 117 oo eR AE 12 h Severe wim isis Ra). ST Ce sed y cee ae SoRemneracetaes gage time, without doubt or danger: un- til our feet are knocked from under us by some sudden shock, and we realize ee unstable the equilibrium of ue really ‘The lesson of life is death. 3 ” The experience would not Ke so trag~ ically universal, if it had not a good and necessary meaning. For one thing it should sober us, and make our lives full of serious, solemn purpose. It should teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. The man, who has no place for death in his philosophy, has not learned to live. The lesson of death is life. On the whole, however, it is not our own liability to death which oppresses us. The fear of it to a brave man, not to speak of a man of faith, can be over= come. jlt is the fear of it for others | whom we love, which is its sting) And mone of us can live very long without i | | VF) knowing in our own heart’s experience | | wey ; S| the reality, as well as the terror, of death. - | f* 5 This too has its nee for us, to look 1] pce eer tear pees aOR) §2 19 FR a a sr ane a oe same rere arm ee at life more eos; and touch it more gently. The pathos of life is only a forced sentiment to us, if we have not felt the pity of life. To a sensitive soul, smarting with his own loss, the world sometimes seems full of graves, and for a time at least makes him walk softly among men. This is one reason why the making of new friends is so much easier in youth than later on. Friendship comes to youth seemingly without any conditions, and without any fears. There is no past te look back at, with much regret and some sorrow. lWe never look behind us, #// the young friendship comes as the glory of spring, a very miracle of beauty, a mystery of birth: to the old it has the chiefly hope: to the old it is mostly mem- ory. The man who is conscious that he has lost the best of his days, the best ot 1 119 » SAAS aE tl AY pl aS NNN eal Dl we miss something. \ Youth is satisfied with the joy of present possession. To — bloom of autumn, beautiful still, but with, — the beauty of decay. To the young it is YANCY Se researc mcrae ca arn nara nernmmcnannrcey RN TT) Ws MALCOM) (CATED 7; v1} ANIL Von VCV HCY 3) ens © dete IOS NIE SI OL OOO WD SSS eens TEE See ees = it met mesons is siars one ch strane ene see ean Sartententvene eantheirenlpr ine emyewymnnen aierropearcereenreaensoceeeeeree nee RA A ne I TS oe — — —- rn acer sieeunicemmndiitnamenarenmataes Tl A eG Ns PTR eI RaPRYER eye pre nance rence ee nea ern een meh a ae ge 9 SSS { his powers, the best of his friends, nat- urally lives a good deal in the past. Such a man is prepared for furthe losses; he has adjusted himself to the fact of death. At first, we cannot be- lieve that it can happen to us and to out love; or, if the thought comes to us, it is an event too far in the future to ruffle the | calm surface of our heart. And yet, it | must come; from it none can escape. Most can remember a night of waiting, too stricken for prayer, too numb of heart even for feeling, vaguely expecting the blow to strike us out of the dark. A | KN! | _ strange sense of the unreality of things — \/ came over us, when the black wave sub- | IK iyi merged us and passed on. We went _ iN ail out into the sunshine, and it seemed to | | mock us. We entered again among the | NB fi busy ways of men, and the roar of life _ beat upon our brain and heart, ih |} HP “Yet in these ears, till hearing dies, hey BAT One set slow bell will seem to toll, a The passing of the sweetest soul That ever looked with human eyes.” 120 mtokctiremtnece : THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP _ Ne Was it worth while to have linked our lives on to other lives, and laid ourselves open to such desolation? Would it not be better to go through the world, with- out joining ourselves too closely to the - fleeting bonds of other loves? Why de- liberately add to our disabilities? But it is not a disability; rather, the great pur- <> pose of all our living is to learn love, even though we must experience the pains of love as well as the joys.. To cut our- selves off from this lot of the human would be to impoverish our lives, and deprive ourselves of the culture of the heart, which, if a man has not learned, he has learned nothing. Whatever the risks to our happiness, we cannot stand out from the lot of man, without ceasing to be men in the only true sense. It is not easy to solve the problem of sorrow. Indeed there is no solution of it, unless the individual soul works out its own solution. Most attempts at a philosophy of sorrow just end in high- sounding words. Explanations, which 121 | : : : | ff ep at me a) iwi g ae Tenersnen Signo PE Seiwiey OVO Cs kale . — eile sane THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP WMO Lee eens ORT SER TRIES PRIA CHEER Sard eninabaserpunmeeens rasteiecaeterer sie sees eT { ear Voc ca . | re profess to cover all.the ground, are as Ht futile as the ordinary blundering at- tempts at comfort, which only charm ache with sound and patch grief with proverbs. The sorrow of our hearts is © not appreciably lessened by argument. Any kind of philosophy—any wordy explanation of the problem—is at the best poor comfort. It is not the problem which brings the pain: in the first in- — stance: it is the pain which brings the ; _ problem. The heart’s bitterness is not _~ allayed by an exposition of the doctrine - aM of providence. .Rachel who weeps for her children, the father whose little daughter lies dead at home, are not to be appeased in their anguish by a nicely-_ balanced system of thought. Nor is _- surcease of sorrow thus brought to the ii | /- man to whom has come a bereavement, — TANG: | or a succession of bereavements, which — - makes him feel that all the glory and joy off life, its friendship and love and hope, | have gone down into the grave, so that INTYVM he.can say, : ripen nempraeische sine siiniod metastatic UPL (GRMN OAYAD SIVA’ ANITOUD Ta ATi ata Sioa vay? eV VINO Y CM IGYS) Meld) SO RNA EON WERDEN D Ae ve =~ eon ee he Mlb Vy or. Van, Ea aa — L=>, re tC AOE A ACT SA : = _ alice . ated sn attendants “Three dead men have I foved, And thou wert last of the three.” At the same time, if it be true that there is a meaning in friendship, a spirit- ual discipline to educate the heart and train the life, it must also be true that there is equally a meaning in the eclipse of friend- ship. If we have enough faith to see death to be good, we will find out for _ ourselves why it is good. |It may teach us just what we were in danger of for- getting, some omission in our lives, which was making them shallow and poor. | It may be to one a sight into the mystery of sin; to another a sight into the mystery of love. To one it comes with the lesson of patience, which is only a side of the lesson of faith; to another it brings the message of sympathy. As we turn the subject toward the light, there come gleams of color from different jacets of it. mpl All life is an argument for death. We cannot persist long in the effort to live the Christian life, without feeling the need 123 | ¢ THE ECLIPSE E OF FRIENDSHIP cm we ise TOI Wagan SSS es YAGI =i 4 for death.“ The ie nibee the aims, and the “truer the aspirations, the greater is the burden of living, until it would become ~ intolerable. Sooner or later we are forced to make the confession of Job, ‘‘I would not live alway.” To live forever in this sordidness, to have no reprieve from the _ doom of sin, no truce from the struggle _. of sin, would be a fearful fate. 3S To the Christian, therefore, death can- not be looked on as evil; first, because it is universal, and it is universal because it _ is God-ordained. In St. Peter’s, at Rome, there are many tombs, in which death is || symbolized in its traditional form as a skeleton, with the fateful hour-glass and _ the fearful scythe. Death is the rude reaper, who cruelly cuts off life and all the joy of life. But there is one in which death is sculptured as a sweet gentle - ‘i motherly woman, who takes her wearied child home to safer and surer keeping. It — | is a truer thought than the other. [Death — ~~. isa minister of God, doing His pleasure, — | and doing us good. a ‘ae DAL RAS eros Cs Again, it cannot be evil because it means a fuller life, and therefore an op- portunity for fuller and further service. Faith will not let a man hasten the cli- max; for it is in the hands of love, as he himself is. But death is the climax of life. For if all life is an argument for death, then so also all death is an argu- ment for life. Jowett says, in one of his letters, ‘I cannot sympathize in all the grounds of consolation that are sometimes offered on these melancholy occasions, but there are two things which have always seemed to me unchangeable: first, that the dead are in the hands of God, who can do for them more than we can ask or have; and secondly, with respect to ourselves, that such losses deepen our views of life, and | make us feel that we would not always be here.” These are two noble grounds of consolation, and they are enough. Death is the great argument for im- mortality. We cannot believe that the living, loving soul has ceased to be. We 125 — a Me 3 . P = cannot believe that all those treasures of mind and heart are squandered in empty air. We will not believe it. When once © we understand the meaning of the spirit. — ual, we see the absolute certainty of eter- | nal life; we need no arguments for the | persistence of being. To appear for a little time and then vanish away, is the outward biography of all men, a circle of smoke that breaks, a bubble on the stream that bursts, a spark put out by a breath. But there is another biography, a deeper and a permanent one, the biography of | the soul. Everything that appears van- | ishes away: that is its fate, the fate of | the everlasting hills as well as of the | vapor that caps them. But that which © does not appear, the spiritual and unseen, ) which we in our folly sometimes doubt | because it does not appear, is the only — reality; it is eternal and passeth not | away. The material in nature is only the — garb of the spiritual, as speech is the clothing of hone With our vulgar ; 12 LNRM Giiakw Kaieiejawive): RIN: SLY D Ws AX ROI ie TT I I EL OS DY LLL IIE IT IIL, TE ELLE | A Pe I OL, EE r ROU L BuC et Pe “a TTT THE ECLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP ‘} standards we often think of the thought as the unsubstantial and the shadowy, and the speech as the real. But speech dies upon the passing wind; the thought alone remains. We consider the sound to be the music, whereas it is only the expression of the music, and vanishes away. Behind the material world, which waxes old as a garment, there is an eter- nal principle, the thought of God it rep- resents. Above the sounds there is the music that can never die. Beneath our lives, which vanish away, there is a vital thing, spirit. We cannot locate it and put our finger on it; that is why it is per- manent. The things we can put our fin- ger on are the things which appear, and therefore which fade and die. So, death to the spiritual mind is only eclipse. When there is an eclipse of the sun it does not mean that the sun is blot- ted out of the heavens: it only means that there is a temporary obstruction be- ‘tween it and us. If we wait a little, it passes. [Love cannot die, Its forms may secre PENS ie canon — Bee RIE e COOL ILE THE ECLIPSE oF F RIENDSHIP LEME O een we oes en win @ike maine ee ee eee ——————————————————E—E——EE—— change, even its objects, but its life is the life of the universe. It is not death, but _ Sleep: not loss, but eclipse. The love is only transfigured into something more ethereal and heavenly than ever before. | j) fh Happy to have friends on earth, but hap- — ©. pier to have friends in heaven. ALY) And it need not be even eclipse, except — | in outward form. Communion with the — .e .. umseen can mean true correspondence — \) y | with all we have loved and lost, if only — OF. our souls were responsive. The highest love is not starved by the absence of its Waa ' ‘ object; it rather becomes more tender AW iP i and spiritual, with more of the ideal in | SSA it. Ordinary affection, on a lower plane, _ | fil dependent on physical attraction, or on | the earthly side of life, naturally crum= 5 | bles to dust when its foundation is re- moved. {But love is independent of time or space, and as a matter of fact is purie | _ fied and intensified by absencel] Separa-_ _ tion of friends is not a physical thing. — Lives can be sundered as if divided by _ infinite distance, even although materially _ —— they are near each other. This tragedy is often enough enacted in our midst. The converse is also true; so that friend- ship does not really lose by death: it lays up treasure in heaven, and leaves the very earth a sacred Fine made holy by happy memories. [‘‘The ruins of Time build mansions in ternity,”) said Wil- liam Blake, speaking of the death of a loved brother, with whose spirit he never ceased to converse. There are people in our homes and our streets whose highest life is with the dead. They live in an- other world. We can see in their eyes that their hearts are not here. It is as if they already saw the land that is very far off. It is only far off to our gross insen- sate senses. The spiritual world is not outside this earth of ours. It includes it and pervades it, finding a new centre for a new cir- cumference in every loving soul that has eyes to see the Kingdom. So, to hold commerce with the dead is not a mere figure of speech. Heaven lies about us 129 — eee = eee SSS ree cere ee cieerenee —s a = mr Saarinen aa oS I re ae not only in our infancy, but all our lives. We blind ourselves with dust, and in our blindness lay hold feverishly of the out- : _ side of life, mistaking the fugitive and evanescent for the truly permanent. If we only used our capacities we would take a more enlightened view of death. We would see it to be the entrance into | a more radiant and a more abundant life na not only for the friend that goes first, but for the other left behind. _ Spiritual communion cannot possibly be interrupted by a physical change. It is because there is so little of the spiritual in our ordinary intercourse that death — means silence and an end to commun- | ion. There is a picture of death, which, — when looked at with the ordinary per- | spective, seems to be a hideous skull, but when seen near at hand is composed | of flowers, with the eyes, in the seem-_ a ingly empty sockets of the skull, formed — 1 by two fair faces of children. Death | .. . at a distance looks horrible, the ghastly | spectre of the race; but with the near | rele AP SPR ak oe Oecd CLIPSE 0 OF FRIENDSHIP a: OWING sO BLL) E ECL _— Siipisieizin ' vision it is beautiful with youth and flowers, and when we look into its eyes we look into the stirrings of life. Love is the only permanent relation- ship among men, and the permanence is not an accident of it, but is of its very essence. | When released from the mere magnetism of sense, instead of ceasing to exist, it only then truly comes into its largest life. If our life were more a life in the spirit, we would be sure that death can be at the worst but the eclipse of friendship. Tennyson felt this truth in his own experience, and expressed it in noble form again and again in Jn Me- moriam — **Sweet human hand and lips and eye, Dear heavenly friend that canst not die; **Strange friend, past, present, and to be; Loved deeplier, darklier understood; Behold I dream a dream of good, And mingle all the world with thee, ‘Thy voice is on the rolling air; I hear thee where the waters run; Thou standest in the rising sun, And in the setting thou art fair.” It is not loss, but momentary eclipse, and PIN ETS ora ie sree eee 131 the final issue is a clearer perception of immortal love, and a deeper conscious- ness of eternal life. The attitude of mind, therefore, in any such bereavement—sore as the first stroke must be, since we are so much the crea- tures of habit, and it is hard to adjust ourselves to the new relationship—can- not be an attitude merely of resignation. That was the extent to which the im- perfect revelation of the Old Testament brought men. They had to rest in their knowledge of God’s faithfulness and goodness. The limit of their faith was, “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away.” But to resignation we can add joy. ‘Not dead, but sleepeth,” said the Master of death and life to a sorrows ing man. For one thing it must mean the hallow- ing of memory. The eclipse of love makes the love fairer when the eclipse passes. The loss of the outward purifies the affection and softens the heart. It brings out into fact what was often only | glory to the past..| We only think of the virtues of the dead: we forget their faults. This is as it should be. We rightly love the immortal part of them; the fire has burned up the dross and left pure gold. |If it is idealization, it repre- sents that which will be, and that which really is? We do not ask to forget; we do not want the so-called consolations which time brings. Such an insult to the past, as forgetfulness would be, means that we have not risen to the possibilities of com- munign_of spirit afforded us in the pres- ent. We would rather that the wound should be ever fresh than that the image of the dear past should fade.) It would be a loss to our best life if it would fade. There is no sting in sucha faith. Such remembrance as this, which keeps the heart green, will not cumber the life. True sentiment does not weaken, but be- comes.an inspiration to make our life worthy of our love. It can save evena 133 = in feeling. “ae adds a tender | | . a wee yo Pi ‘ei Re EO thest Al bad bas a ae CDCI MIU OE PY LUT Ee LECTED OE Ta IC SESE HET | FS homens ~ a - - oa “lpestnareppspatcsknpetncee es = 5 @ mi “CLIPSE OF FRIENDSHIP _ Te a aT Ha hs squalid lot from sordidness; for however _ ‘poor we may be in the world’s goods, We are rich in happy associations in the past, and in sweet communion in the _ Present, and in blessed hope for the fu- ‘ture. A a “, - Si of OU CD NOEL IoD LDR TED OULU FBI Wa. )}" Ap PS PLA \cudeenaieeboneeeeey see anaee rene 2 SR Lemweter pie Stride Soren t". ae ee cerren wane ; Gr PIF Alpe eNom TALe IID’ wile Ses ; ea Das ‘ CHA C : © | ; “They parted—ne’er to meet again, : But never either found another one To free the hollow heart from paining— % t | i ho They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs which had been rent asunder, A dreary sea now rolls between; | But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder, Shall wholly do away, I ween, The marks of that which once hath been, | Jeg : CoLERIDGE, Christabel. MLM OOnw we Nw AK NOREEN, iZ ona pe LOORG MA aes ; if ee : SIHE eclipse of friendship through death is not nearly so sad as the many ways in which friendship . . may be wrecked. [There are | worse losses than the losses of death; _ and to bury a friendship is a keener grief; than to bury a friend,{ The latter softens ’ the heart and sweetens the life, while the former hardens and embitters. The Persian poet Hafiz says, ‘‘ Thou learnest no secret until thou knowest friendship; since to the unloving no heavenly knowl- edge enters.” But.so.imperfect are our human relationships, that many a man has felt that he has bought his knowledge too dearly. Few of us go through the 137 Svea Sees EON) SRE Ree 1h 8. awed - world without some scars on the heart, 7 | which even yet throb if the finger of _ memory touch them. In spite of all -.... that has been said, and may be said in \ | praise of this golden friendship, it has been too often found how vain is the - help of man. [The deepest tragedies of life have been the failure of this very relationship. In one way or other the loss of friend- | 4 | #ship comes to all. The shores of life are Ne. vA strewn with wrecks. The convoy which left the harbor gaily in the sunshine can- Wea, \| not all expect to arrive together in the iy y fl haven. There are the danger of storms AG and collisions, the separation of the I night, and even at the best, if accidents _ hever occur, the whole company cannot all keep up with the speed of the swift- | est _ “There is a certain pathos in all loss, but _ there is not always pain in it, or at least it is of varied quality and extent. Some I THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP change. Some loss is even the necessary accompaniment of gain. The loss of youth with all its possessions is the gain of manhood and womanhood. A man must put away childish things, the speech and understanding and thought of a child. So the loss of some friendship comes as a part of the natural course of things, and is accepted without mutilat- ing the life. Many of our connections with people are admittedly casual and temporary. They exist for mutual convenience through common interest at the time, or common purpose, or common business. None of the partners asks for more than the advantage each derives from the con- nection. When it comes to an end, we let slip the cable easily, and say good-bye with a cheery wave. With many people we meet and part in all friendliness and good feeling, and will be glad to meet again, but the parting does not tear our affections by the roots. When the busi- ness is transacted the tie is loosed, and 139 net A a Seine ata rere tn er VOR. | cause they are not based on the qualities | THE WRECK OF FRI = a erent we each go our separate ways without much regret. At other times there is no thought of gain, except the mutual advantage of _ conversation or companionship. We are | pleasant to each other, and enjoy the in- tercourse of kindred tastes. Most of us have some pleasant recollections of happy meetings with interesting people, per= | haps on holiday times, when we felt we | A) would be glad to see them again if for- tune turned round the wheel again to the same place; but, though hardly ever did it come about that an Opportunity of meeting has occurred, we do not feel that our life is much the poorer for the loss. “/\. Also, we grow out of some of our | Wi friendships. This is to be expected, since — So many of them are formed thought- | lessly, or before we really knew either | ourselves or our friends, They never | _ meant very much to us. [Most boyish — friendships as a rule do not last long, bes which wear well. $ Schoolboy comrade< 1 140 zz bi ae seen cn PINT TE TA ATA PAL THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP ships are usually due to propinquity rather | _ than to character. They are the fruit of — accident rather than of affinity of soul. Boys grow out of these as they grow out of their clothes. }Now and again they suffer from growing pains, but it is more discomfort than anything else. It is sad to look back and realize how few of one’s early companionships re- main, but it is not possible to blame either party for the loss. Distance, sep- aration of interest, difference of work, all operate to divide. When athletics _ seemed the end of existence, friendship was based on football and baseball. But as life opens out, other standards are set up, and a new principle of selection takes its place. When the world is seen to be more than a ball-ground, when it is recognized to be a stage on which men play many parts, a new sort of intimacy is demanded, and it does not follow that it will be with the same persons. Such loss as this is the condition which accom- panies the gain of growth. | 141 i SEIT aT oa _ a - SyIC¥ icant CYNCY INO HC aS 7A) ed Ay ef Fa | NN ea A : ; i tt Sl St ane eine neh en SL OE SI IT a ee - ww - ~ q / Ph, Wa Po RAS See ae ade phe OS St ct ee DESO CREED w zu sree ee mie iis — SS Win sey? orb bmn eee ee rte ORT E IN E ‘THE : WRECK OF ‘PRIENDSHIP ) There is more chance for the perma- . hence of friendships formed a little later. It must not be too long after this period, i however; for, when the generous time — of youth has wholly passed, it becomes — hard to make new connections. Men get overburdened with cares and per- sonal concerns, and grow cautious about making advances. In youth the heart is responsive and ready to be generous, and the hand aches for the grasp of a com- rade’s hand, and the mind demands fel- lowship in the great thoughts that are beginning to dawn upon it. (T he closest — friendships are formed early in life, just because then we are less cautious, more — open to impressions, and readier to wel- come self-revelations. After middle life — Es -.- a man does not find it easy to give him _ Hi y Ai self away, and keeps a firmer hand on a AN iy | his feelings. Whatever are the faults of oy livwava' / youth, it is unworldly in its estimates as 1 iY _ atule, and uncalculating in its thoughts — of the future. . Nga fii Fhe danger to such friendship is the IN a THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP ———— _ . aA RAE TE TEETER ITS TT OTT ee een = Ponape tan an Se danger of just letting it lapse. As life spreads out before the eager feet, new interests crop up, new relations are formed, and the old tie gets worn away, from want of adding fresh strands to it. We may believe the advice about not for- saking an old friend because the new is not comparable to him, but we can neg- lect it by merely letting things slip past, which if used would be a new bond of union. FAs it is easier for some temperaments to make friends, it is easier for some dis- positions to keep them. Little faults of manner, little occasions of thoughtless- |)’ ness, or lack of the little courtesies, do | more to separate people than glaring mis- takes. There are some men so built that it is difficult to remain on very close terms with them, there are so many cor- ners to knock against. Even strength of character, if unmodified by sweet- ness of disposition, adds to the difficulty of pulling together. Strong will can so easily develop into self-will, decision 143 ID BEE Rp AE =xt23= series ee Ser RFE ESS ae Sites SOs MELE Lai Cueiem RON pienT WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP he THE space yetpprecmn= tegen vee inne taiesanians ST ener rrmmmmer see samen reer teary meee tt Nae NRCP Caer ARR MTR Haeale Nanded io ansnraranceat ccnicorantoetonsnanameneen santa imei ace can become dogmatism; wit, the salt of conversation, loses its savor when it becomes ill-natured; a faculty for argu- ment is in danger of being mere quarrel- someness. The ordinary amenities of life must be. preserved among friends. Wecan never feel very safe with the man whose hu- mor tends to bitter speaking or keen sar- casm, or with the man who flares up into hasty speech at every or no provo- | cation, or with the man who is argu- mentative and assertive, — “Who'd rather on a gibbet dangle Than miss his dear delight to wrangle.” There are more breaches of the peace among friends through sins of Speech, __ than from any other cause. We do not _ We make the vulgar mistake of looking — 1 upon the common as if it were there- i | 1esinocymeendieesccnienrnasecrserarmroee orp : STR FORCE om es fore cheap in nature. e ought rather to treat our friend with a sort of sacred . Satie hear eeepptiers Cota cpeecatresbadencne cari cee fas emppdon atitormuae reer yreeryrie ney emmparwegy Speman: | familiarity, as if we appreciated the pre- | ' cious gift his friendship is. : i 144 a | -; if 8 PoC STE 39 coe [PBA Sy Mes a aes Pia a a — _ THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP aaserweeas a NS SE A A A ITE [ Every change in a man’s life brings a | risk of letting go something of the past, which it is aloss to part with. A chan | of work, or a change of residence, c* entrance into a larger sphere, brings a certain engrossment which leads to neg- lect of the richest intercourse in the past life. To many a man, even marriage has had a drop of bitterness in it, because it has somehow meant the severing of old and sacred links. This may be due to the vulgar reason of wives’ quarrels, the result of petty jealousy; but it may be due also to pre-occupation and a subtle form of selfishness. The fire needs to there must be forethought, and care, and i | y °, | | love expended as before. ill Friendship may lapse through the mis- fortune of distance. Absence does not always make the heart grow fonder. It only does so, when the heart is securely ~ fixed, and when it is a heart worth fix> | ing. More often the other proverb is truer, that it is out of sight out of mind. * 145 tI i | be kept alive with fuel’ To preserve it, So, TNE HSI RR SNARE ESL VE MRL SY ; t8 si ROS a fee PSA CL INSEE A De DEL DEL PLE S18 y sl Bo ; ; [si At 3 r= THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP aa SEES : PS ie eiK WP ee wre nde DEI ED ACD Die HER il 2 US | en Nl td nd dy — It is so easy for a man to become self- centred, and to impoverish his affections. through sheer neglect. Ties once close _ get frayed and strained till they break, and we discover that we have said fare- well to the past. Some kind of inter- course is needed to maintain friendship. There is a pathos about this gradual drift- ing away of lives, borne from each other, it sometimes seems, by opposing tides, as if a resistless power Separated them, i 1 : I “And bade betwixt their souls to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.” Or friendship may lapse through the | | fault of silence. The misfortune of dis- tance may be overcome by love, but the fault of silence crushes out feeling as the falling rain kills the kindling beacon. Even the estrangements and misunder- _ Standings which will arise to all could not long remain, where there is a frank a and candid interchange of thought. Hearts grow cold toward each other a through neglect. ABs is a suggestive — 14 pee SSSI ERO USES vi a CU CHCA IN pnp.) Ue | Lucas WRECK or ‘FRIENDSHIP _ he SoC iY is ste ie ton ee ee ee ns word ae the old eran Edda, | cass. | [Go often to the house of thy friend; 9 «> | for weeds soon choke up the unused NN Tall path.”] It is hard to overcome again the ww) alienation caused by neglect; for there Wealil grows up a sense of resentment and in- NY | Wi jured feeling. ea [Among the petty things which wreck Neal friendships, none is so commonandso Hil unworthy as money.) It is pitiable that Al it should be so. Thackeray speaks of the (i remarkable way in which a five-pound note will break up a half-century’s at- Ss wh tachment between two brethren, and it Ye BS \ is a common cynical remark of the world K\{ | N that the way to lose a friend is to lend Nw yy him money. There is nothing which Wi ivi seems to affect the mind more, and color NT | il the very heart’s blood, than money. eZ i; There seems a curse in it sometimes, so NAP Al potent is it for mischief. Poverty, if it Nt . i; i) be too oppressive grinding down the face, may often hurt the heart-life; but per- haps oftener still it only reveals what true treasures there are in the wealth of the INeptapyil ie ae — WD aie REM BINAINEA roa LULU P ee ORD WLP) e Te. WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP Bist ite) i, ES UC RIC Dh tae Pde aw Mae ee 4 |, Se hance pa Rh crn bebimcamtrerary tiene H RNS we Ya evan Yor stra nevasncn vation epee ef re aa seseeates rresehesiestvensnciantentoe fovea eT een caer eeneencneer sire eager ee ee ~ RRS ae arama a a eran er affections. Whereas, we know what heartburnings, and rivalries, and envy- ings, are occasioned by this golden apple of discord. Most of the disputes which Separate brethren are about the dividing of the inheritance, and it does seem to be the case that few friendships can survive the test of money. “Neither a borrower, nor a lender be . For loan oft loses both itself and friend.” There must be something wrong with the friendship which so breaks down. It ought to be able to stand a severer strain than that. But the inner reason of the failure is often that there has been a moral degeneracy going on, and a weak- ening of the fibre of character on one Keeney side, or on both sides. The particular HA if! dispute, whether it be about money or ANG Al about anything else, is only the occasion iene ‘A which reveals the slackening of the mo- (\0 /)) tale. The innate delicacy and self-respect A of the friend who asks the favor may NY | have been damaged through a series of IN ih 148 emit! ODIO eae} One oe Rae see RR mre prs er ht E WRECK TH CK AT SITY similar importunities, or there may have been a growing hardness of heart and selfishness in the friend who refuses the request. Otherwise, if two are on terms of communion, it is hard to see why the giving or receiving of this service should be any more unworthy than any other help, which friends can grant to each © other. True commerce of the heart should make all other needful commerce possible. Communion includes commu- nism. To have things in common does not seem difficult, when there is love in common. outside means, by the evil of others, \) or the whispering tongues that delight in scandal. Some mean natures rejoice in sowing discord, carrying tales with just the slightest turn of a phrase, or even a tone of the voice, which gives a sinister reading to an innocent word or act. Frankness can always prevent such from permanently wrecking friendship. Be- I : a a ae ears Ws FAP AP CVO CY (a ; Pp ‘i As WAAAY yt he Ss € : A NS ES EO Fave emer on gon Neem ae ot i} \) Friendship has also been wrecked by it » through the evil speaking, or the envy, ay F FRIENDSHIP _ AN ee IDSSEZ4 Nag a it WEY la 1 a: j i i} bys VE iY RE A X Jake of th [SSS ihr n & ri H nt “Ee / ? Ai WE ye Van be bit Hy ae eter Pe Se PA doh aah de) i hos Fee | hipaa | AN A AN i LSI Sree, ' Ne Cs a 1 , \ } ti is iP Held }) a5 THE four friend by his record, by what we know of his character. When anything _ before our notice, it is only justice to him _ would be wisdom to refuse to credit it at + all. : Sot 34 mnaresesceceel ogee at a scores #)j rou CESAR RD a Dacca mine mtn WRECK O ae a aa ere mth score rmenin a ntenhn mieneclcmeatins Laem wewnree. ~oroees " Tot renin semmesepmereene Smart memeevenamanmenpsipennc pen oat = re aT ES a Noe mares nni eee ani irr reersoreenniemionmibirsaceneiseeshaiin iy parithdaie ; seeaeadinaniiimeninmgtan ai Ta rho sae "eS Se Pe creme lorane eee ere wey e Srememnereiartimermesnan oeoantomnaessesn array | sides, we should judge no man, still less a trusted friend, by_a report of an inci- dent or a hasty word. We should judge inconsistent with that character comes to at least Suspend judgment, and it We sometimes wonder to find a friend cold and distant to us, and perhaps we moralize on the fickleness and incon- Stancy of men, but the reason may be to seek in-ourselves. We cannot ex- pect the pleasure of friendship without the duty, the privilege without the re- sponsibility. We cannot break off the threads of the web, and then, when the mood is on us, continue it as though nothing had happened. If such a break- age has occurred, we must go back aud patiently join the threads together again, Thoughtlessness has done more harm in this respect than ill-will. If we have lost oT, LE OLE Py, - en eer FMA g “THE. WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP A: a. | | a friend through selfish neglect, the loss is ours, and we cannot expect to take up the story where we left off years ago. There is a serene impudence about the treatment some mete out to their friends, dropping them whenever it suits, and thinking to take them up when it hap- pens once more to suit. We cannot ex- pect to walk with another, when we have gone for miles along another way. We will have to go back, and catch him up again. If the fault has been ours, de- sire and shame will give our feet wings. The real source of separation is ulti- mately a spiritual one. We cannot walk with another unless we are agreed. \ The lapse of friendship is often due to this, __ that one has let the other travel on alone. } If one has sought pleasure, and the other ~ has sought truth; if one has cumbered his life with the trivial and the petty, and the other has filled his with high thoughts and noble aspirations; if their hearts are on different levels, it is natural that they should now be apart. We cannot stay 15! ——— OR CT YE aie ny een Tih ek. ESE aT behind with the camp-followers, and at the same time fight in the van with the heroes. If we would keep our best friends, we must go with them in sym- pathy, and be able to share their thoughts. In the letters of Dean Stanley, there is one from Jowett to Stanley, which brings out this necessity. ‘‘I earnestly hope that the friendship, which commenced be- tween us many years ago, may be a blessing to last us through life. I feel that if it is to be so we must both go onward, otherwise the tear and wear of life, and the ‘having travelled over each other’s minds,’ and a thousand accidents will be -/. sufficient to break it off. I have eften felt the inability to converse with you, but never for an instant the least alien- ation. There is no one who would not Leen i «4 think me happy in having such a friend.” | . ‘It is not, however, so much the equal pace of the mind which is necessary, a the equal pace of the spirit. We may Ai think about a very brilliant friend that he - will outstrip us, and outgrow us. The 152 LCPORNCIO RRA Lee e Rwy enw | x i any Sent it us eSNG SS oneness it is an unfounded fear. / “Yet oft, when sundown skirts the moor, An inner trouble I behold, ’ A spectral doubt which makes me cold, That I should be thy mate no more.” 4 vy ButMlove is not dependent on intellect. The great bond of union is not that both parties are alike in mind, but that they are akin in soul. Mere intellect only di- vides men further than the ordinary nat- ural and artificial distinctions that already exist. There are endless instances of this disuniting influence to be seen, in the contempt of learning for ignorance, the derisive attitude which knowledge assumes toward simplicity, the metro- politan disdain for provincial Galilee, the rabies theologica which is ever ready to declare that this people that knoweth not the law is accursed. [It is love, not logic, which can unite men.J Love is the one solvent to break down all barriers, and love has other grounds for its existence than merely intellectual ones. So that 153 | THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP fear is ide but if there be eed SN ED altholign similarity of taste is another > bond and is perhaps necessary for the /\\\ | //)| perfect friendship, it is not its founda-4 HESS JA, tion; and if the foundation be not under- IN Al sd, there is no reason why difference. HN Ht mine y nce — Hi yi of mental power should wreck the struc- : nani i However it happen that friends are | int | Hi ' sepa d; for the loss Salle of a friendship is the loss of an ideal. | | | ¢ Sadder than the pathos of unmated hearts 1 NGeZ LA is the pathos of severed souls. [yt i is al-/ AV S , ways a pain to find a friend look on us } Ie with cold stranger’s eyes, and to Know. : f MY it ; ourselves dead of hopes of future inti- Ut | { : NS VAN A 4 macy. It is a pain even ‘when we hav “ih nothing to blame ourselves with, much _ ) more~so-when-we° feel that” ours is the _ SA) fault ype woulenor seen te mance re, very much, if it were not such a loss to both; : at t for friendship is one-of the appointed | | > means of saving the life from world- | -. Tiness..and-selfishness.) It is the greatest |) Ne) ey) ‘education in the world; for it is educa- | IN RATA _tion of the whole man, ‘of the affections | S\ Se | Bah qa j { eee? fi I | tk eat ee ae ad A Hi i ' herS } Lis a ey ae 0 i 4 Oty iy TR at 3 y RPA TOTY REO ie) WMA SSAC ecw ia win To NA aE aS io WSS og worldly success can make up for the ‘want of it. And true friendship is also a moral preservative. It teaches something of the joy of service, and the beauty.of “sacrifice. {We cannot live an utterly use- less life, if we have to think for, and act for, another. It keeps love in the heart, _and keeps God in the life.77 _ The greatest and most irretrievable wreck of friendship is the result of a moral breakdown in one of the associates. “Worse than the separation of the grave is the desolation of the heart by faithless- ness. More impassable than the gulf of distance with the estranging sea, more separating than the gulf of death, is the great gulf fixed between souls through deceit and shame. It is as the sin of Judas. Said a sorrowful Psalmist, who had known this experience, ‘‘ Mine own familiar friend in whom | trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his | heel against me.” And another Psalmist | sobs out the same lament, “It was not 155 4 well as the intellect,/ Nothing of —_ cb Gaal BEES UVES g core ey SAE TE ar enantio ee renames gee : < ~ Seeman nate tek nate a aateoaneatannn cn aniney ema Sanaa thecipeoreon meamereeerpteeeren % % . Sa tae cere paar ean cetera apie daca nay nase per teen ay ae a NS i, Sa SSS a ee an enemy that reproached me, then [| could have borne it, but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and mine ac- quaintance. We took sweet counsel to- gether, and walked into the house of God in company.” The loss of a a friend by | _any of the common means ist is not so hard, | as to fi nd a friend faithless. The fustiog ; ae > > * ee, ee ge eel o> Sy, 8) a . sae ors . SLY RERIT 4 SOLON ANN / The rod has broken in the hand that leaned on it, and has left its red wound | | on the palm. There is a deeper wound on the heart. J The result of such a breakdown of com- — tadeship is often bitterness, and cynical | distrust of man. It is this experience which gives point to the worldling’s | sneer, Defend me from my friends, I can’ defend myself from my enemies. We cannot wonder sometimes at the cynicism. — It is like treason within the camp, against which no man can guard. It is a stab in” the back, a cowardly assassination of the heart. Treachery like this usually mean a sudden fall from ys ideal for the de« ( 2 ew Suwa PRT Pe EL Pie 4 Se pe Sen ~ Sf nl) Zz } S Catan nner tere va SAP - Dor ~ SS ‘ oF } Papper ; TV) v" ry y = if (OO a edema es oveereentecmeansneeovenne iarcaeronreeeneaiinie Dene i rege Riz» Orbs ieee: ee I ee ue ik a AS Rls sl sae i oe | ‘THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP rae roranen Seton meee ats FO ceived one, and the ideal can only be re- covered, if at all, by a slow and toilsome ascent, foot by foot and step by step. all. This is the terrible responsibility of friendship. We have more thanthe-hap~ piness_of our friend in_our-pewer—we have his faith, Most men who are cyn- — ical about women are so, because of the inconstancy of one. Most sneers at friendship are, to begin with at least, the expression of individual pain, because the man has known the shock of the lifted heel. Distrust works havoc on the character; for it ends in unbelief of good- with its own likeness, and is paid back > picion, and the conduct of life on such The social virtues, which keep the closely allied to the supreme virtue of friendship. Aristotle had reason in making 157 Failure of one often leads to distrust of | ie . ness itself. And distrust always meets | in its own coin. Suspicion breeds sus= principles becomes a tug-of-war in which ; | Greek is matched with Greek. HAY whole community together, are thus | ear er oe sl mo os == Se Ka : ate THE WRECK OF F RIENDSHIP a, NE wateyhesT IAN PHM eee Ler CLeKenerwii~n ee mes = So ere empmrraerennn 3 me aecanaontearvasn Soran en rm SS te en as en Nn it the mexus between his Ethics and his Politics. Truth, good faith, honest deal- _ _. ing between.man.and_man, are necessary _ for any kind of intercourse, even that of business. Men can do nothing with each other, if they have nota certain minimum of trust. There have been times when . | ; | faithlessness, when the social bond seems loosened, when men’s hands are raised against each other, when confidence is paralyzed, and people hardly know whom | to trust. | The prophet Micah, who lived in such a time, expresses this state of distrust: i Hh ‘i | ie ° . _ there seems to be almost an epidemic of | Ait i} AY | | i} .. “Trust ye not any friend, put ye no con- . fidence ina familiar friend. A man’s ene- mies are of his own household.” This a bundle of sticks with the cord cut. The | _ cause is always a decay of religion; for _.. Jaw is based on morality, and morality | WEY Ur i finds its strongest sanction in religion. ye -.. Selfishness results in anarchy, a reversion | | ) Oo. means anarchy, and society becomes like . : to the Ishmaelite type of life. dail 158 ia Cy Cy NK Cy DP IDR api PABA POON ANS RE Ww Lee, SIT try ¥ THE WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP The story of the French Revolution has in it some of the darkest pages in the his- / tory of modern civilization, due to the breakdown of social trust. The Revo- lution, like Saturn, took to devouring her own children. Suspicion, during the reign of terror, brooded over the heads of men, and oppressed their hearts. The ties of blood and fellowship seemed bro- | ken, and the sad words of Christ had | their horrid fulfillment, that the brother would deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children rise up against the parents and cause them to be put to death. There are ' some awful possibilities in human na- ' ture. In Paris of these days a man had to be ever on his guard, to watch his acts, his words, even his looks. It meant for a time a collapse of the whole idea of the state. It was a panic, _ worse than avowed civil war. Friend- | ship, of course, could have little place in such a frightful palsy of mutual confi- dence, though there were, for the honor _ 159 | A) | to religion. ll/ | jin God, because they have lost, through /faithlessness, their faith in many Doubt Of the reality of love becomes doubt of | of the race, some noble exceptions. The wreck of friendship through deceit is al- ways a step toward social anarchy; for | it helps to break down trust ang good faith among men. [ The wreck of friendship is also a blow Many have lost their faith the reality of the spiritual life. To be unable to see the divine in man, is to have the eyes blinded to the divine any- where. Deception in the sphere of love shakes the foundation of religion. Its re- | Re sult is atheism, not perhaps as a conscious | speculative system of thought, but as a | A] y subtle practical influence on conduct. It | ~~~ corrupts the fountain of life, and taints the | NEY | whole stream. Despair of love, if final | Ni | and complete, would be despair of God; | IWF |] ‘ iWivavil bor God _is love. Thus, the wreck of | | friendship often means a temporary | NeeZ | wreck of faith. It ought not to be SO; | IMs af but that there is a danger of it should | =o = 4 | EI Re oa TAIT TTR IA a Te a) SASSER 0 ag TL) Ls Meee ae nea eae ce e | Ree ia Sat WRECK OF FRIENDSHIP — ene —— — — > _- pe ap vm f Teme eds Las Tam ACO VOML UNL WAL BRA @HERUS UR INP LCI INO Ah 5 UI IEF (PAU TSO TaN gE: if = POA A ea NE te a ae BIG BIC De DICE OE PLE DOI DO tea Os batt des ka S-_ a ——— aren = ne oo nt Oe aS 6 SS ca eee ———————— ————— zs : By, OM, impress us with a deeper sense of the : responsibility attached to our friend- ships. (Our life follows the fortunes of our lov 161 Pe SS ae we OOM. SEEM, Seats 2 et “ee ee : Pacers POV n > a Ete ae yy ARG 2 f Weg 5 44 : a : . “ eet THE RENEWING U st vi vad SAE I Bt a) “ “‘Perhaps we may go further, and say that friends, whose friendship has been broken off, should not entirely — forget their former intercourse; and that just as we hold that we ought to serve friends before Strangers, so former friends have some claims upon us on the ground of past friendship, unless extraordinary depravity were the cause of our parting.’’—ARISTOTLE. dM SS ire ini URES a LUO MMP MLE WAS KOE Ke Fi no nc rae ae dint awa sercnni noe aan Cee See ancien sicorslb re readin se - ~ i wiley ses ic pattolelaietcccashiae eee CE || aA AY Vat CGY [ YAW GY y . PAL i QVM NOM a ioais emai areimnetm ane ee petine Riel Styne is a sentiment of the poets and romancers that love is rather helped by quarrels. There must be some truth in it, as we find the idea expressed a hundred times in different forms in literature. We find it among the wisdom of the ancients, and it remains still as one of the conventional properties of the dramatist, and one of the accepted traditions of the novelist. It is expressed in maxim and apothegm, in play and poem. One of our old pre- Elizabethan writers has put it in classic form in English:— “The falling out of faithful friends is the renewing of lover”) It is the chief stock-in-trade of the 165 ee een aeree — rece I Ee PSD DI a RO EE SS en earner : = wan / { Ne = TT ICT ITV ICY | DIV DPIINPSVPVIVVL YXs as Z y S KVQVKD YSes A a's v ae aS ee es : ss y L » at PYLALYY YZ ik { : g t iW} Vv \ 4 ic\i | piri 1\\ ee INT YZ 4 Ke u 1 ea ear i} OMS) Wt YW ANd \\ 1H) lS) £ — 1} I< y "4 / i\f sw} ids Y | KN { J H WNL iw. om is ; a I 74 > wag A \ \\ yY | tS ; i] 1} \ / 1 he JE OA ) \ ; WG) 2 Ut 1\) ; ie > SP ih *-/ : \ ) Y Vai JAG ie % THE uenteahegtge ee ee if ry standings which arise between two per- sons, through the sin of one, or the folly of both, or the villainy of a third; then come the means by which the tangled skein is unravelled, and in the end every- thing is satisfactorily explained, and the sorely-tried characters are ushered into a happiness stronger and sweeter than ever before. Friends quarrel, and are miser- able in their state of separation; and afterward, when the friendship is re- newed, it is discovered that the bitter dispute was only a blessing in disguise, as the renewal itself was an exquisite pleasure, and the result has been a firmer and more stable relationship of love and trust. The truth in this sentiment is, of course, the evident one, that a man often only wakens to the value of a possession when he is in danger of losing it. The force of a current is sometimes only noted when it is opposed by an obstacle. [Fwo per- sons may discover, by a temporary alien- I = = ’ a ene PVT IT es we Fi cuss ba A * LPNS NK Uy typ Ka: SA CRE RKTT SA eenaishesomtn eoeamaraee ere oe — ne es { tit i iW AINE Reavy AG SK ation, how much they really care for each other>\ It may be that previously they took fhings for granted. Their af- fection had lost its first glitter, and was accepted as a commonplace. Through some misunderstanding or dispute, they broke off their friendly relationship, feel- ing sure that they had come to an end of their regard. They could never again be on the same close terms; hot words had been spoken; taunts and reproaches had passed; eyes had flashed fire, and they parted in anger—only to learn that their love for each other was as real and as strong as ever. [ The very difference revealed the true union of hearts that had ee They had been blind to the strength of their mutual regard, till it was so painfully brought to their notice. The love is renewed with a more tender sense of its sacredness, and a more profound feeling of its strength. The dissensions only displayed the union; the discord drove them to a fuller harmony. This is a natural and common experience. 167 lee Aca PN EGY ye — ak an eo) an 9) Z, ty = 7, Q Se, st het eo es ZA, se TD. = a BSE Le. Fone ween ppp Sen preerneper ert ee ——————— % Nees . mace prvmenanseperanarerer rye guts a “pose Tai) \ imme ‘3 =| ie = 3 [<4 ned < 3 S cd 5 . J | . re 4] = 4 i s « 5 3 a S C3 pal is a iss 2) al : } te| hal SI 6 in! fl Ge aca But a mistake may easily be made by _| confusing cause and effect. ‘‘Thecourse | of true love never did run smooth on but the obstacles in the channel do not produce the swiftness and the volume of the stream ; they only show them. There may be an unsuspected depth and force for the first time brought to light when the stream strikes a barrier, but the bar- rier is merely the occasion, not the cause, of the revelation. To mistake the one for the other, may lead to a false and stupid policy. Many, through this mis- take, act as though dissension were of the very nature of affection, and as if the one must necessarily react on the other for good. Some foolish people will some- times even produce disagreement for the supposed pleasure of agreeing once more, and quarrel for the sake of making it up again. Rather, the end of love is near at hand, when wrangling can live in its presence. ~ {It is not true that love is helped by | iN ail quarrels, except in a small sense already _ => ——— \ om ee nn en mary < raid nf —_ NPs aie ca = Sh Pe fe noe fled \ oe SS J i\ oo ) ==. eee omer mncninmaeainl Nt £ ff 06 2» Ay My a lease DIG PSR WR ee ae ECORI PTC UTES EP PH pened an AN a SALON MR VNE LEI 8/0). OAS): Salas Sisalonah Coa de tao ld aera an eaten 7 r ry Het 7d) VeICVAICV oT Le TCTOn ET 1) Pe PNT EN: WOM) RPYQVOOVE RUS CAS ST EN £2, ecru hee t et Ma ea ouamaiamaninas a ie Sea SSSTSSER ESS i CHC PION ve — CONN CS A indicated. A man may quarrel once too often with his friend, and a brother of- _ fended, says the proverb, is harder to be won than a strong city, and such cone tentions are like the bars of a castle.] It | is always a dangerous experiment to _ willfully test affection, besides being often __ acruel one. } Disputing is a shock to con- fidence, and without confidence friend- ship cannot continue. A state of feud, even though a temporary one, often em- bitters the life, and leaves its mark on the heart. Desolated homes and lonely lives are witnesses of the folly of any such © policy. From the root of bitterness there cannot possibly blossom any of the fair flowers of love. The surface truth of | the poets’ sentiment we have acknowl- © edged and accounted for, but it is only a surface truth. The best of friends will fall out, and the best of them will renew their friendship, but it is always at a _ great risk, and sometimes it strains the foundations of their esteem for each other to shaking : 169 53] r= | =} is fae} 3] Sen pte Pe eee papaya edit | WA ions reece eerneraercetanntincrmatancte eh teres aa pacer SITS PPT MRE RPET eae Rete rT Tiel Weert ee BOS IE A A Lorie iit WOM Me en sree @iiaiea ie ire i HAIN! | Sell pe nan Ihe hal tiled ives kcdetohed t y- er a 7 a TS ST Sa SSS SSE ere ee weet Sibi 4 we) ail “ And blessings on the falling out | iN OA That all the more endears, f i yh When we fall out with those we love ! : And kiss again with tears | °* But in any serious rupture of friendship it can only be a blessing when it means the tears of repentance, and these are often tears of blood. In all renewing there must be an element of repentance, and however great the joy of having re- gained the old footing, there is the mem- ory of pain, and the presence of regret. To cultivate contention as an art, and to trade upon the supposed benefit of re- newing friendship, is a folly which brings its own retribution. The disputatious person for this reason never makes a good friend. In friend- ship men look for peace, and concord, and some measure of content. There are enough battles to fight outside, enough jarring and jostling in the street, enough | disputing in the market-place, enough | discord in the workaday world, with- — out having to look for contention in the — i realm of the inner life also. There, if | i i } i i ff £. = 7 27 ih § Léa RUG | 4 170 Rohe | NOMS Pant La Se oe ae 2 SRE OOS HORE NSIS : ¥ a ae Rapes et nnn = = anywhere, we ask for an end of strife. Friendship is the sanctuary of the heart, and the peace of the sanctuary should brood over it. Its chiefest glory is that the dust and noise of contest are ex- cluded. {t must needs be that offences come. conflict and controversy, and every man must take his share in the fights of his time. We are born into the battle; we are born for the battle. But apart from the outside strife, from which we can- not separate ourselves, and do not desire to separate ourselves if we are true men, the strange thing is that it looks as if it must needs be that offences come even among brethren. The bitterest disputes in life are among those who are nearest each other in spirit. We do not quarrel | with the man in the street, the man with whom we have little or no communica- tion. He has not the chance, nor the power, to chafe our soul, and ruffle our temper. If need be, we can afford to It is not only that the world is full of Pill, DIS ia bs aN, INCI, } FT TRI TT ATV ITO ‘ DIN WINGY ICO) 2 V5 Vat 3 \2 ; 2 9 aby Mi) Ve ¥ an Ne? . WK DY IMADYAOENDIE ty ls a iP Sy 2 EAN ts et Ae tee Noon a or eee he At : clit alles his Fl alie Ry ae pall SE ale fon a DT RT PS NE SAE RT NEE TEES IE EET OTT ” —_ THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIF Pr eae Bonet Kad Stse ak enc eee saree aero gets] eae De pepo Da despise, or at least to neglect him. It is the man of our own household, near us in life and spirit, who runs the risk of . the only serious dissensions with us. The man with whom we have most | points of contact presents the greatest _ number of places where difference can occur. Only from circles that touch each other can a tangent strike off from the same point. |A man can only make ene- mies among his friends.) A certain amount} | of opposition and enmity a man must be i prepared for in this world, unless he live j a very invertebrate life. Outside oppo- — sition cannot embitter, for it cannot touch — the soul. But that two who have walked | as friends, one in aim and one in heart, perhaps of the same household of faith, "should stand face to face with hard | brows and gleaming eyes, should speak | y)) as foes and not as lovers of the same | . i love, is, in spite of the poets and roman- cers, the bitterest moment of life. | There are some we cannot hurt even if a we would; whom all the venom of ow | ile af mi wae BWC OIL) LOL DLL Fw | PRLS mu OE ENO 1 ey eae aL wan WARE win nothing to them. But there are others| in our power, whom we can stab with al word, and these are our brethren, our familiar friends, our comrades at work, our close associates, our fellow laborers in God’s vineyard. It is not the crowd that idly jostle us in the street who can hurt us to the quick, but a familiar friend in whom we trusted. He has a means of ingress barred to strangers, and can strike home as no other can. This exe |\ plains why family quarrels, ruptures in the inner circle, Church disputes, are so bitter. They come so nearus. An of- fended brother is hard to win, because the very closeness of the previous inti- macy brings a rankling sense of injustice and the resentment of injured love. An injury from the hand of a friend seems such a wanton thing, and the heart hard- ens itself with the sense of wrong, and a separation ensues like the bars of a castle. It must needs be that offences come, but woe unto him by whom they come. 173 WAC ICTR CIT ene ar I TOTAL DCLG PION GIONS IK BRAK LSP Coy W r 9) RVNCVS av, PYRITE a ‘ 2 t seocnen are Se ered oa aS AAS IS ‘ale nature could not touch, because we mean} © "1 # —~—-- The strife-makers find in themselves, in their barren heart and empty life, their | own appropriate curse. The blow they strike comes back upon themselves. Worse than the choleric temperament is | the peevish, sullen nature. The one usually finds a speedy repentance for his _ hot and hasty mood; the other is a con- 4 Stant menace to friendship, and acts like a perpetual irritant. Its root is selfish-— ness, and it grows by what it feeds on. When offences do come, we may in=— deed use them as opportunities for growth in gracious ways, and thus turn them into blessings on the lives of both. To | the offended it may be an occasion for | patience and forgiveness; to the offender, an occasion for humility and frank con- | fession; and to both, a renewing of love | less open to offence in the future. There | are some general counsels about the | making up of differences, though each | case needs special treatment for itself, } which will easily be found if once the { desire for concord be established. Christ’ S- 174 Me —— oe = SS r Pai we WKB srm) Simm Own ee RECO MLE@)': oy SL ver ees mean TY eC ICO ¢ “7 erates a FA ois el» RR ‘THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP | recipe for a quarrel among brethren is: “If thy brother shall trespass against = thee, go and tell him his fault between ji thee and him alone; if heshall hear thee, «9 thou hast gained thy brother.” vee Much of our dissension is due to mise understanding, which could be put right by a few honest words and a little open dealing. Human beings so often live at cross purposes with each other, when a frank word, or a simple confession of wrong, almost a look or a gesture, would heal the division. Resentment grows through brooding over a fancied slight. Hearts harden themselves in silence, and, as time goes on, it becomes more diffi- cult to break through the silence. Often ee ote little coaxing of the spark to burst out again into a dancing flame. There isa terrible waste of human friendship, a waste of power which might be used to _— — o fuel there are strained relations among men,} | who, at the bottom of their hearts, have} sincere respect for each other, and smoul-} dering affection also, which only needs a \ Rs, } ie = hn en er NE A EFT ASLO ER SE ELL AE RE Or cere NA IIT i AR A TN TT CPG DIG DIG DIC Se A a ts I A BP SS Sy ae ma = > edited NSE Agi ; Ue e : RAF ON OSD iD Soe ait FAO oe Vath an ¥ Et eae 7 merase ==") bless all our lives, through our sinful sep- -- arations, our selfish exclusiveness, our | | resentful pride. | We let the sweetest souls we have met die without acknowl. — edging our debt to them.) We stand aside in haughty isolation, till the open - grave opens our sealed hearts—too late. — We let the chance of reconciliation pe till it is irrevocable. Most can remembe: a tender spot in the past somewhere, a WF A Ren ED ee : SES LIS Fa DRI ALERTS P= SN Me (oe rey he Ox, YS prrene a po ~ i Ly | sore place, a time when discord entered ; ie A with another they loved, and : HW AiZs aM “Each spake words of high disdain i | am i Ay And insult to his heart’s best brother.” ANT LAL And in some cases, as with the friends | In Coleridge’s great poem, the parting | has been eternal, and neither has ever { i le al since found another such friend to fill the | | ni | life with comfort, and free the hollow } | heart from paining. ’ There is more evil from such a state of _ hi | Wi discord than the mere loss it is to both; — la <4 it influences the whole heartelife, creat« HNIY | | ing sometimes bitterness, sometimes uni- _ UNL 2 170 a if RSULOEE | a CRUE IAD ROD ee he Re SYS OLD STC a (aaTap mene wo saee es > IIIS . i SARIN us I : “ ae ner vaenewnn a0 ir ns een re n THE RENEWING OF F RIENDSHIP lore seer nee 2 _ Hatred is contagious, as love is. ane | have an effect on the whole character, _and are not confined to the single inci- dent which causes the love or the hate. To hate a single one of God’s creatures is to harden the heart to some extent zainst all. Love is the centre of a cir- i cle, which broadens out in ever-widening | circumference. Dante tells us in La Vita Nuova that the effect of his love for Bea- trice was to open his heart to all, and to sweeten all his life. He speaks of the surpassing virtue of her very salutation to him in the street. ‘‘ When she ap- | peared in any place, it seemed to me, by the hope of her excellent salutation, that there was no man mine enemy any longer; and such warmth of charity came upon me that most certainly in that mo- ment I would have pardoned whomso- ever had done me an injury; and if any one should then have questioned me con- cerning any matter, 1 could only have said unto him ‘ Love,’ with a countenance 897 Fine ease € i Sng RD re Sa. danipups deasorincaet Reels eer Sl vnen ar nen eew ne a me aan Sarees Srmens tems ance serrate EO i TO eT THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP sa ip ot eet mes ys ae SS ae i reer pee ey ee hep pen enn nnpnpreee magi ~ Seer Amati 2 BCE VE DR Wee eae) OAS ENE CAG TMG RD TM we) emilee LEMMA ae... raannytrelie aye eae bes Son metortener eer eae iris nen oe apron = tewninewerrare se Spel bean nee clothed in humbleness.” His love bred sweetness in his mind, and took in every- thing within the blessed sweep of its range. Hatred also is the centre of a cir- cle, which has a baneful effect on the | whole life. We cannot have bitterness | or resentment in our mind without its coloring every thought and _ affection. Hate of one will affect our attitude to- ward all. If, then, we possess the spirit to be rec- onciled with an offended or an offending | brother, there are some things which may | be said about the tactics of renewing the broken tie. There is needed a certain — tactful considerateness. In allsuchques- _ tions the grace of the act depends as | much on the manner of it, as on the act itself. The grace of the fairest act may be hurt by a boorish blemish of manner. Many a graceful act is spoiled by a grace- less touch, as a generous deed can be ruined by a grudging manner. An air of condescension will destroy the value of the finest charity. alee is a forgive. 17 | Ne ee ww PIO _ THE ; RENEWING ©: OF ‘FRIENDSHIP Ca ae ti SE: Sah, SUL eee ro eS _ cowcinemenione —— nan er akan aaa ness ay is no Ae RE constrained, from the teeth and lips out- ward. It does not come as the warm breath which has had contact with the blood of the heart. The highest forgive- ness is so full and free, that it is forget- fulness. It is complete as the forgiveness of God. If there is something in the method of the approach, there is perhaps more in the time of it. It ought to be chosen carefully and considerately; for it may be that the other has not been prepared for the renewal by thought and feeling, as the man who makes the advances has been. No hard and fast rule can be for- mulated when dealing with such a com- plex and varied subject as man. So much depends on temper and character. One man taken by surprise reveals his true feeling; another, when taken off his guard, is irritated, and shuts up his heart in a sort of instinctive self-defence. The thoughtfulness of love will suggest the appropriate means, but some emphasis FR belniopayetpeannPicateaeerhtevetereieee a ee ere nna ahr aa ranch beeecmerlinconpomieenees en re enna errr sense wn may rightly be given to the phrase in | Christ’s counsel, ‘‘ between thee and him alone.” Let there be an opportunity for a frank and private conversation. To ap- | peal to an estranged friend before wit- nesses induces to special pleading, making» the witnesses the jury, asking for a ver- dict on either side; and the result is that both are still convinced they have right on their side, and that they have been wronged. a If the fault of the estrangement lies with us, the burden of confession should rest upon us also. To go to him with sincere penitence is no more than our duty. Whether the result be successful or not, it will mean a blessing for our own soul. Humility brings its own reward; for it brings God into the life. Even if | we have cause to suspect that the offended _ brother will not receive us kindly, still — such reparation as we can make is at | least the gate to reconciliation. It may be too late, but confession will lighten the burden on our own heart. Our brother 180 LETTE aeRO PER DED Wey) BES SUIS RRR NEU Ie 281) AN ee iiss epi e ay) 75 POTTS 7 ay 7s a as Taipei 2 BOS VE OTR mit OP) pie ST Sint cee sreenremnenercsneeen marist tte RTS TT, SS a. ENDSHIP © — — a ta TLS ane AS 7 is £ | may be so offended that he is harderto = =——— be won than a strong city, but he isfar | / more worth winning; and even if the 9. effort be unsuccessful, it is better than = the cowardice which suffers a bloodless ih Wall defeat. AALS | “ff,-on the other hand, the fault was not | ours, our duty is still clear. It should be | | Wal | even easier to take the initiative in sucha | case; for after all it is much easier to for- give than to submit to be forgiven. To Hat Y | | some natures it is hard to be laid under is Wan |} an obligation, and the generosity of love — — A | must be shown by the offended brother. Weegee { || He must show the other his fault gently |) and generously, not parading his forgive. OE) ness like a virtue, but asif the favor were 1iNwe ae on his side—as it is. Christ made fore = giveness the test of spirituality. If wedo ~ ned |} not know the grace of forgiveness, we )) do not know how gracious life may be. NM } ee \ The highest happiness is not a matter of bese possessions and material gains, but has -\ its source in a heart at peace, and thus | it is that the renewing of friendshiphasa on || {\\ \ One i) 181 IN } ‘it fi ne ol hie > ti “i | | CR RL ACW RN Fw 28 FURL iti Fase TW A CAS a 6 FN RE ed a | | OS a TTC Ta Ry =I IIIS ie LI SEO RRO Owe, RE CS rah THERE FRIE | i os Evan Spiritual result. If we are revengeful, censorious, judging others harshly, always putting the worst construction on a word or an act, uncharitable, unforgiving, we certainly cannot claim kinship with the spirit of the Lord Jesus. St. Paul made the opposite the very test of the Spiritual | man: ‘‘ Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore _ such an one in the spirit of meekness.” | If we knew all, we would forgive all. If we knew all the facts, the things which produced the petulance, the sore- ness which caused the irritation, we would be ready to pardon; for we would understand the temptation. If we knew all, our hearts would be full of | pitiful love even for those who have | wronged us. They have wronged them- selves more than they can possibly wrong us; they have wounded a man to their | own hurt. To think kindly once more | of a separated friend, to soften the heart toward an offending brother, will bring the blessing of the Peace os the bless- as MOMENT TENN eS ne bE Nort Si hall Sek eh NMI RRA LE de Neha? bik) es SAA eM es Nee pe Wn nae tare LLL NN ELTA ln ch tates he ne r — real CUE ICY DA AATAA Sos OSORIO NOMA cern omar ce ee N er Praia “ Ps we: wn vs = ¢ wn te ean) seen: Anh fine nna Eh mennvormecery (THE RENEWING OF F RIENDSHIP {; ing of the Rbnoneller The way to be sure of acting this part is to pray for him. _ We cannot remain angry with another, _ when we pray forhim. Offence departs, when prayer comes. The captivity of Job was turned, when he prayed for his friends. ) (If we stubbornly refuse the renewing | of friendship, it is an offence against re- | ligion also. Only love can fulfill the law | of Christ. His is the Gospel of reconcili- ation, and the greater reconciliation in- cludes the lesser. The friends of Christ — must be friends of one another. That /_ ought to be accepted as anaxiom. To be reconciled to God carries with it at least a disposition of heart, which makes it easy to be reconciled to men also. We have cause to suspect our religion, if it does not make us gentle, andfor- bearing, and forgiving; if the love of our Lord does not so flood our hearts as to cleanse them of all bitterness, and spite, and wrath. If a man is nursing anger, if he is letting his Bung become a nest ey 183 Wt {| webueas, y eo PASSE 07.90 0120) Clee 1T w17 x9) TaN A ee Ea, bet Bed i mae _ THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP | - Ni LC, Ona I On ae a ee ee a) mis i of foul passions, malice, and hatred, and HRY. vas | evil wishing, how dwelleth the love of IN _ God in him P es Ly If we cannot, at need, even humiliate ourselves to win our brother, it is diffi- cult to see where our religion comes in, especially when we think what humilia- tion Christ suffered, that He might recon- — cile us to God, and make us friends again with our heavenly Father, and renew our broken love. Whatever be our faith and works, and however correct be our creed and conduct, if we are giving place to anger, if we are stiffening ourselves in strife and disdain, we are none of His, who was meek and lowly of heart. We may come to the Sanctuary with lips full of praises and eyes full of prayers, with devotion in our hearts and gifts in our hand, but God will spurn our worship and despise our gifts. It is not a small matter, this renewing of friendship, but | is the root of religion itself, and is well - made the very test of spiritual-minded- Val ness. “If thou “ne thy gift to the I “ armen iy = Gy son esas ay = ge 6 Vg Pe nae attract + — ae és ee © REmwe e0 a © X ys mew 3 = GY Cy - - CVV CV ONY INT ipsa ny NYE © — aE AUER —_ Nice mt FI TT EAN I IE HES TR ares TOLD HEAT THO IEW Eee THE RENEWING OF FRIENDSHIP Ei ca < Osiarie Le eee ae altar, and eee rememberest that t thy | brother hath aught against thee, leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy broth- er, and then come and offer thy gift.” Wy Fi Misunderstandings and estrangements = will arise, occasions will come when it ~~ seems as if not even love and forbear- ance can avoid a quarrel, but surely Christ has died in vainif His gracecan- not save us from the continuance of = strife. + aa Such renewing of Iove, done with this — high motive, willindeed bring anadded joy, as the poets have declared. The very pain will give zest to the pleasure. I We will take the great gift of friendship A} | with a new sense of its beauty andsa- credness. We will walk more softly bee : cause of the experience, and more than ever will tremble lest we lose it. For days after the reconciliation, we will go about with the feeling that the benedic- tion of the peace-makers rests on our head and clings round our feet. 185 WALL {4 PRL! j PAAAY rn ee Prt ec EY AG OOP tS A ES EO EEE = te sa | dtd Sad ed ANE Ca wVeRES: Bea © fm Z OT CUTS A SoG PRP alte aret , } TEC | : | g Li \ : 4 id Ay ¢ 7 Py: + AR M L ! i hire fess ATES EE SCE DRE SEE CUD ee HOE é ip ra ores sne de eee SSS But more than any personal joy from the renewed friendship, we will have the smile of God on our life. We will know that we have done what is well pleasing in His sight. Sweeter than the peace which comes from being at one with men, is the peace which comes from being at one with God. It settles on the soul like the mist on the mountains, en- veloping and enswathing it. It comes to our fevered life as a great calm. Over 3 __ the broken waters there hovers the golden | _ glory of God’s eternal peace. And more even than all that, we will have gained a new insight into the love | of the Father, and into the sacrifice ofthe | Son. We will understand a little more — of the mystery of the Love which became poor, which gladly went into the wilder- : ness to seek and to save the lost. The 3 cross will gain new and rich significance to us, and all the world will be an arena in which is enacted the spectacle of God's _ great love. The world is bathed in the | love of God, as it is eae by the blessed | I Ss ~ won Ye aot WE SS Ae a: ae : = = Wed see? {i's {4 & 0) SS “s ee ° ws | ta 3 a 2 my ws * - ai ee x f CS at SEA 3) = NaS, } f i } Dhan ecm ee tenner NG ef a aes nd ssc BPR aes Teo oe [SP He ae) Hie ES PT OT PPV Ne, Marwari PYRG ee Die ee nares nn eneeemnrtnh ete o teraenacenenn éacar ee neaianci eae Re 3 = OF | 2d SRT OO OT PO DS VANS SOS ON NAY Aa piveubiheaedineeempanam + IAAT er aaatee wegen aneeponore nen TET TD ae aan Far rer rare “i a SCR FO LL RERET ie eet ga RIENDSHIE My were eal | cS: SN coarnveeteainl le 4 = ah = eae me dion i - a a a eI EN ETRE Can Sa ay NL rx Ae = SOE: TOES Vo Fe re sas (Oar eee Gos ced y = ahesst3, Sr Ke} ROTO) SERENE SST “If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which ts as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unio him, but thine hand shalb be first upon him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people; because he has sought to 1 thrust thee away jrom the Lord thy God.” DEUTERONOMY. “Yet each will have one anguish—his own soul, Which perishes of cold." i MatTrHew ARNOLD. anes MMOMMMNOMOO ASO MOTOWN ae { ~ oO “rj ies a iZ == Fp = purest, has limits,) At its begin- ning, it seems to have no condi tions, and to be capable of end- less development. In the first flush of newborn love it seems almost an insult to question its absolute power to meet every demand made uponit. The ex- _ quisite joy of understanding, and being understood, is too keen to let us believe, | that there may be a terminal line, beyond | which we may not pass. Friendship) comes as a mystery, formless, undefined, without set bounds; and it is often a sore experience to discover that it is circum- 191 scribed, and limited like everything hu-— man. At first to span of it as having qualifications was a profanation, and to find them out came as a disillusionment. Yet the discovery is notallaloss. The ry fi limitless is also the vague, and it is well “to know the exact terms implied in a re- lationship. Of course we learn through >| experience the restrictions on all intimacy, | and if we are wise we learn to keep well ~\. within the margin; but many a disap- \-°) pointment might have been saved, if we _ had understood the inherent limitations of the subject. These are the result of per- sonality.: Each partner is after all a dis- tinct individual, with will, and conscience, and life apart, with a personal responsi- bility which none can take from him, and with an individual bias of mind and heart which can never be left out of account. As is to be expected, some of the lim- its of friendship are not essential to the relation, but are due to a defect in the re- lation, perhaps an idiosyncrasy of char- acter or a peculiarity of temper. Some of the limits are self-imposed, and arise 192 Lisl) MEDS SUP D ies OP De eS Da UL ae SUNT GUM AoC TIP TOM gl = 2 — Aes VARS Sis wA8 OSADN ARN QS MIGNS Ay we By a 3 from mistake of folly. A friend may be too exacting, and may make excessive demands, which strain the bond to the | breaking point. There is often a good _ deal of selfishness in the affection, which _ asks for absorption, and is jealous of other | interests. estoy is usu the fruit, —7 _ not of love, but of self-love. [Life is big- _ ger than any relationship, and covers more ground. The circles of life may in- _ tersect, and part of each be common to the other, but there will be an area on both sides exclusive to each; and even if it were possible for the circles to be con- centric, it could hardly be that the circum- ference of the two could be the same; one would be, almost without a a doubt, of larger radius than the other. “Tt is not identity which is the aim and the glory of friendship, but unity in the midst of difference._} To strive at identity is to be certain of failure, and it deserves failure; for it is the outcome of selfishness. [| A man’s friend is not his property, to be claimed as his exclusive possession. 193 ¥ f\ that they make it visible, MAP RO we «whale Fis, santa a ans ote or coane Be piste ietiionion art viciie taerepinerenm sneer rent ieverr sana hare ie eae tan CON a ap RPO Pee sie arene henna pet “ Jealousy is an ignoble vice, because it has its roots in egotism. It also destroys af- fection, since it is an evidence of want of trust, and trust is essential to friendship. There are physical limits to friendship, if nothing else. There are material bar- riers to be surmounted, before human beings really get into touch with each other, even in the slightest degree. The bodily organs, through which alone we can enter into communication, carry with them their own disabilities. The senses are at the best limited in their range, and are ever exposed to error. [Flesh stands in the way of a complete revelation of soul. uman feet cannot enter past the threshold of the soul’s abode. The very means of self-revelation is a self-conceal- ment. The medium, by which alone we know, darkens, if it does not distort, the object. Words obscure thought, by the very process through which alone thought is possible for us; and the fleshly wrap- . pings of the soul hide it, at the same time ; A EIS RCE en Sn Soe Nn eee | | | . | | { | 194 eer i Bie re LONE AEN And if there are physical limits to friendship, there are greater mental limits. The needs of living press on us, and drive us into different currents of action. Our varied experience colors all our thought, and gives a special bias to our mind. There is a personal equation which must always be taken into ace count. This is the charm of intercourse, but it is also a limitation. We do not travel over the same ground; we meet, but we also part. | However great the sympathy, it is not~possible completely to enter into another man’s mind, and look at a subject with his eyes.) Much of our impatience with each othef, and most of our misunderstandings, are caused by this natural limitation. The lines along which our minds travel can at the best be asymptotic, approaching each other in- definitely near, but never quite coinciding. The greatest limit of friendship, of which these other are but indications, is the spiritual fact of the separate person- ality of each human being. This is seen 195 most absolutely in the sphere of morals, The ultimate standard for a man is his own individual conscience, and neither the constraint of affection, nor the au- thority of numbers, can atone for false- ness there. One of the most forceful illustrations of this final position of all religion is to be found in the passage of terrific intensity from the Book of Deu- teronomy, which we have transcribed as a preface to this chapter. - The form of the passage of course gets its coloring from the needs of the time and the tem- per of the age. The Book of Deuteron- omy is so sure that the law of God is necessary for the life of Israel, and that departure from it will mean national ruin, that it will shrink from nothing needed to preserve the truth. Its warn- ings against being led away to idolatry are very instant and solemn. Every pre- caution must be taken; nothing must be allowed to seduce them from their al- legiance, not the most sacred ties, nor the most solemn Bees: No measure 19 ee of repression can be too stern. In that fierce time it was natural that apostasy should be thought worthy of death; for apostasy from religion meant also treason to the nation: much more those who used their influence to seduce men to apostasy were to be condemned. The passage is introduced by the assertion that if even a prophet, a recognized serv- ant of God, attesting his prophecy with signs and wonders, should solicit them to ‘leave the worship of Jehovah, in spite of his sacred character, and in spite of the seeming evidence of miracles, they must turn from him with loathing, and his doom should be death. And if the apos- tasy should have the weight of numbers and a whole city go astray, the same doom is theirs. If the tenderest relation- ship should tempt the soul away, if a brother, or son, or daughter, or wife, or friend, should entice to apostasy, the same relentless judgment must be meted out. The fact that this stern treatment is 197 See a ge CERCA We SU FLO NALLY AUS AB ANS Te APS PP SET AICI) OR PeMyevoin Vy re TH Cy Itt Ly, DY ei Key o We IRE POI Teh SZ a aS DN w& SYOW4 “- wal sewarmr ss EE. advocated in this Book, which is full of the most tender consideration for all weak things, shows the need of the time. Deuteronomy has some of the most beautiful legislation in favor of slaves — and little children and birds and domes- tic animals, some of it in advance of even our modern customs and practices, per- meated as these are by Christian senti- ment. And it is in this finely sensitive Book that we find such strong assertion of the paramount importance of individ- ual responsibility. The influence of a friend or near rela- tive is bound to be great. We are af- fected on every side, and at every mo- ment, by the environment of other lives. There is a spiritual affinity, which is the closest and most powerful thing in the world, and yet in the realm of morals it has definite limits set to it. At the best it can only go a certain length, and ought not to be allowed to go further than its legitimate bounds. The writer of Deu- teronomy appre to the full the wre eee ene EOE SR Dn RE Re ‘THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP power and attraction of the near human relationships. We see this from the way he describes them, adding an ad- ditional touch of fondness to each, ‘‘ thy brother the son of thy mother, the wife of thy bosom, thy friend who is as thine own soul.” But it sets a limit to the place even such tender ties should be allowed to have. The most intimate of relatives, the most trusted of friends, must not be permitted to abrogate the place of conscience. Affection may be perverted into an instrument of evil. There is a higher moral law than even the law of friendship. /The demands of friendship must not Be allowed to interfere with the dictates of duty./ It is not that the moral law should be blindly obeyed, but because in obey- ing it we are choosing the better part for both; for as Frederick Robertson truly says, ‘‘the man who prefers his dearest friend to the call of duty, will soon show that he prefers himself to his dearest friend.” Such weak giving in to 199 f [EV ROL COL Cin Cio UO eS a THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP oe rr Se ra erg nee the supposed higher demand of friend- ship is only a form of selfishness. Friendship is sometimes too exacting. It asks for too much, more than we have to give, more than we ever ought to give. There is a tyranny of love, making de- mands which can only be granted to the loss of both. Such tyranny is a perver- sion of the nature of love, which is to “serve, not to rule. It would override conscience, and break down the will. We cannot give up our personal duty, as we cannot give up our personal respon- sibility. That is how it is possible for | Christ to say that if a man love father, or mother, or wife more than Him, he is not worthy of Him. No human being can take the place of God to another life; it is an acted blasphemy to attempt it. There is a love which is evil in its self- ishness. Its very exclusive claim is a sign of its evil root. The rights of the - individual must not be renounced, even — for love’s sake. Human love can ask too much, and it asks too much when it 200 i ; i SFP RIN I DDE Me Dro AL RT ET peers Le Leia | Onanon as OV Hie ae eye . y V DiADAD TAN AD PY DOE Seiten end would break down the individual will 9 and conscience. © WEY VA “ The hands that love us often are the hands That softly close our eyes and draw us earthward. We give them all the largesse of our life— iN Not this, not all the world, contenteth them, Till we renounce our rights as living souls.’” We cannot renounce our rights as living souls without losing our souls. No man can pay the debt of life for us. No man can take the burden of life fromus. To 9). no man can we hand over the reinsun- = . reservedly. It would be cowardice, and © > cowardice is sin. The firstaxiomof the » spiritual life is the sacredness of the in- | + dividuality of each. We must respect || s/)2/ 4 each ator s personality. Even when we /\\")\\/) } have rights over other people, theserights ‘\are strictly limited, and carry with them Ja corresponding duty to respect their | rights also. The one intolerable despot- ism in the world is the attempt to puta | yoke on the souls of men, and there are some forms of intimacy which approach |». that despotism. To transgress the moral |) i} Va Ay 1 Ay | YUH 201 ALY 7 ONAN a ee Be Te SOOO BEEN Ta on iis Sts tie MERE ES Sel EON Ea ; aaa a ea eee nee hetarnnsne iano nani A ASSASSIN DTS miele ctneteisirionimeraiafoanipmacesn ee inane cece vamp waiter iecs iebweynn aso oo cE ERASE TOT Wo BOVE CRMPOPTUS IR) EPG AT uae Car ah Mone yenbee te ones haner paingeapenp enone ne Rein pear wees hee ween Rae Pengo bounds set to friendship is to make the highest forms of friendship impossible; for these are only reached when free Spirits meet in the unity of the spirit. The community of human life, of. which we are learning much to-day, is a great fact. We ave ali bound up in the same bundle. In a very true sense we stand or fall together. We are ever on our trial as a society; not only materially, but even in the highest things, morally and spiritually. There is a social con- science, which we affect, and which con- Stantly affects us. We cannot rise very much above it; to fall much below it, is for all true purposes to cease to live. We have recognized social standards which test morality; we have common ties, common duties, common responsibilities. But with it all, in spite of the fact of the community of human life, there is the other fact of the singleness of human life. We have a life, which we must live alone. We can never get past the ultimate fact of the personal responsi- | 202 oAncencnren ea are 7 : LVM hGg et DE Rew Tee: So —_— ree ra y y —— Wie ww SS j [| LES SOON SENS ah — XL a eee emer BRNO een IP THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP _ bility of each. We may be leaves from _ the same tree of life, but no two leaves are alike. We may be wrapped up in | the same bundle, but one bundle can contain very different things. Each of us is colored with his own shade, sepa- rate and peculiar, We have our own special powers of intellect, our own \ special experience, our own moral con- science, our own moral life to live. So, while it is true that we stand or fall to- gether, it is also true—and it is a deeper truth—that we stand or fall alone. In this crowded world, with its inter- course and jostling, with its network of relationships, with its mingled web of life, we are each alone. Below the surface there is a deep, and below the deep there is adeeper depth. In the depth of the human heart there is, and there must be, | solitude. There is a limit to the possible communion with another. We never completely open up our nature to even our nearest and dearest. In spite of our- | selves something is kept back. Not that | 203 _ we are untrue in this, and hide our inner self, but simply that we are unable to re veal ourselves entirely. Thereis abitter | ness of the heart which only the heart | knoweth; there is a joy of the heart with which no stranger can intermeddle; there is a bound beyond which even a friend who is as our own soul becomes a stran- ger. There is a Holy of Holies, over the threshold of which no human feet can pass. It is safe from trespass, guarded from intrusion, and even we cannot give to another the magic key to open the door. In spite of all the complexity of our social life, and the endless connec- tions we form with others, there is as the ultimate fact a great and almost weird solitude. We may fill up our hearts with | human fellowship in all its grades, yet | there remains to each a distinct and sep- arated life. We speak vaguely of the mass of men, but the mass consists of units, each with his own life, a thing apart. The com- bee of human life is being emphasized 204 i iain PACH MAURO LO eT O IO! Opus, US I MIGE ae AY ls Wie? to-day, and it is a lesson which bears and needs repetition, the lesson of our com- ay mon ties and common duties. Butatthe = | same time we dare not lose sight of the == fact of the singleness of humanlife, if for 9) no other reason than that, otherwise we have no moral appeal to make on behalf of those ties and duties. In the region of morals, in dealing with sin, we see how true this solitude is. There may be what we can truly call social and national sins, and men can sin together, butiin its ulti- mate issue sin is individual.) It is a dis- integrating thing, separating a man from | his fellows, and separating him from God. We are alone with our sin, like | \ ibe i NY ch \ \t Sines the Ancient Mariner with the bodies of 9° 1” his messmates around him, each cursing Hy him with his eye. In the lastissue, there (~~~ is nothing in the universe but God and | the single human soul, Men can share | | the sinning with us; no man can share kee) the sin. ‘‘ And the sin ye do by two and Wt Y two, ye must pay for one by one.” | Therefore in this sphere of morals there = 2 205 WNL Y Al I I \ Ne Vy a} D Pi AO TO TD | a ical t a IC are : j iN 8 TPIS XK iG ROI is vn OI ae Ty TCV cy sire au Ae CTs y i: 2 Zs P¥ SIM Ves ' _ feetof flesh. Mourners have indeed been CETL SDD must be limits to friendship, even with the friend who is as our ownsoul. * | Friendship is a very real and close thing. It is one of the greatest joys in life, and has noble fruits. We can do much for each other: there are burdens we can share: we can rejoice with those who do rejoice, and weep with those who weep. Through sympathy and love we are able to get out of self; and vet even here there are limits. Our helpless- ness in the presence of grief proves this fundamental singleness of human life. _ When we stand beside a friend before _ the open grave, under the cloud of a great sorrow, we learn how little we can do for him. We can only stand speechless, and pray that the great Comforter may come with His own divine tenderness, and enter the sanctuary of sorrow shut to soothed by a touch, or a look, or a prayer, which had their source in a pitiful human heart, but it is only as a message of con- _ dolence flashed from Oss world to another. 2 tS Cae “TH Luts oF sUENDSHIP There is a burden which every man must bear, and none can bear for him; for there is a personality which, even if we would, we cannot unveil-to human eyes. There are feelings sacred to the man wno feels. | We have to ‘‘dree our own weird,” and | In the time of desolation, when the truth of this solitude is borne inonus, | we are left to ourselves, not because our iK | friends are unfeeling, but simply because they are unable. It is not theirselfish- ness which keeps them off, but just their ) frailty. Their spirit may be willing, but | the flesh is weak. It is the lesson of life, i that there is no stay in the arm of flesh, _ that even if there is no limitto human — love, there is a limit to humar. power. — Sooner or later, somewhere or other, itis the experience of every son of man, asit 9) was the experience of the Son of Man, | | ‘Behold the hour cometh, and now is ~~ | come, that ye My friends shall be scat~ | leave Me alone.” rnc raprocass an ccc TR ACS Tae a ee NSS enim nwa pcemararen my Se tem cnet ~< -_ “- ri PCT IA PIB AR LTS POH CH joa Prepeneene teeta es ee P | t PT —— Re GATE IRR IGB TANT OMI CUA AWA BCG) aA) .An" PIAS! Ne AP De, Nee Oy) ONS, : / > ; } , WAY WE LSE ONE d é pL aR x : woes pornos Semen aersr ehaiaa ee a ATT OTE pee rent apn - a1. FR nanometer live our own life, and die ourowndeath, = tered every man to his own, and shall ~~ [fT DIC I a fee _ THE LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP ——— <: Eady FDEP Ee ee Da ; Y PES ee UO LeeLee Mew eLeLe owe Kone EST ones marerecereceracete mem rereapes een reo raceme cae nA EN A tre sah tan a a ERCP Amon as EOE R _ { Human friendship must have limits, \ | just because it is human. It is subject to “loss, and is often to some extent the sport of occasion. It lacks permanence: asa | misunderstandings can estrange us: slan- AN | der can embitter us: death can bereave -\o) us. Weare left very much the victims of circumstances; for like everything earthly HN | i) it is open to change and decay. No mat 5 ter how close and spiritual the inter- course, it is not permanent, and never certain. If nothing else, the shadow of | _ death is always on it. Tennyson de- ee NI scribes how he dreamed that he and his i 4 friend should pass through the world to- SS gether, loving and trusting each other, | | and together pass out into the silence. “ Arrive at last the blessed goal, And He that died in Holy Land | ) | Would reach us out the shining hand, | And take us as a single soul.” 4 It was a dream at the best. Neither to live together nor to die together could blot out the spiritual limits of friendship. Even in the closest BY, human relations, 2 wool s CO Cipro me re Le ize) F | [RNS | RE aa . i AON e ———————— ee ae worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, they may be made one fiesh, but never one soul. Singleness is the ultimate fact of human life. ‘*The race is run by one and one, and never by two and two.” In religion, in the deepest things of the spirit, these limits we have been consid- ering are perhaps felt most of all. With even a friend who is as one’s own soul, we cannot seek to make a spiritual im- pression, without realizing the constraint of his separate individuality. Wecannot break through the barriers of another’s distinct existence. If we have ever sought to lead to a higher life another whom we love, we must have been made to feel that it does not all rest with us, that he is a free moral being, and that only by voluntarily yielding his heart and will and life to the King, can he enter the King- dom. We are forced to respect his per- sonality. We may watch and pray and speak, but we cannot save. There is 209 THE ‘LIMITS OF FRIENDSHIP (Jo DT aI It SU Se A a ere ee almost a sort of spiritual indecency i in un- veiling the naked soul, in attempting to invade the personality of another life. There is sometimes a Spiritual vivisection which some attempt in the name of re- ligion, which is immoral. Only holier eyes than ours, only more reverent hands — than ours, can deal with the spirit of a man. He is a separate individual, with all the rights of an individual. We may have many points of contact with him, the contact of mind on mind, and heart on heart; we may even have rights over him, the rights of love; but he can at will insulate his life from ours. Here also, as elsewhere when we go deep enough into life, it is God and the single human soul. The lesson of all true living in every sphere is to learn our own limitations. It is the first lesson in art, to work within the essential limitations of the particular . art. But in dealing with other lives it is perhaps the hardest of all lessons, to is the crowning grace of faith, when we 210 learn, and submit to, our limitations. It — sprees you rao sonrenonnenn serena ae pcan pata PD sarees a tye COAG OILS! rhe PACT DIT TG SIC HD D ie be BS cBre HY THE oe. or F FRIENDSHIP shine oh hae Tw = F PEATE NW SLRD ee raaahaTiinia haa nie maga a moet / are willing to submit, and to leave those _ | we love in the hands of God, as weleave | | ourselves. Nowhere else is the limitof = friendship so deeply cut as herein the =~ things of the spirit. | **No man can save his brother’s soul, Nor pay his brother’s debt.”* | Human friendship has limits because — of the real greatness of man. We are | too big to be quite comprehended by an- © other. There is always something in us ii) ee left unexplained, and unexplored. We 9 yy do not even know ourselves, much less |= ~ can another hope to probe into the re- — cesses of our being. Friendship has a limit, because of the infinite element in © the soul. It is hard to kick against the pricks, but they are meant to drive us to- ward the true end of living. It ishard ~~~ to be brought up by a limit along any line of life, but itis designed tosendusto = a deeper and richer development of our - life. Man’s ‘limitation is God’s occasion. Only God can fully satisfy the hungry | heart of man. all | , tal 1 e eatin si a OIE sin ie =" Tet Nr ets Tee eur wai re an ioe EG anaes anit ee, C hon le tatty inn a heehee pawn ss * w Lupe Mn atu gust GE hr. Mi aac Ca | | “Love Him, and keep Him for thy Friend, who, hee all go away, will not forsake thee, nor suffer thee to iain. ish at the last.—Tuomas A KEempPIs. i corres Meas * Hush, I pray youl PRE 88 io What tj this friend heppen to bhe—Godl? a i BROWNING. | CONT COO O NOL OLONW NON Wi1 ITO = BF ASN ECL BS “ _ Sint y + —— By» BA RCTS @|IFE is an education in love. There are grades and steps in it, occa- sions of varying opportunity for the discipline of love. It comes to us at many points, trying us at differ- ent levels, that it may yet entrance some- how, and so make our lives not alto- gether a failure. When we give up our selfishness and isolation, even in the most rudimentary degree, a beginning is made with us that is designed to carry us far, if we but follow the leading of our hearts. There is an ideal toward which all our experience points. If it were not so, life would be a hopeless enigma, and the world a meaningless farce. There must 215 RE 2 Ten RANUUTS ii Se TEDCOMTII U TOM Dn SLY Re be a spiritual function iritenneteds a oe te build up strong and true moral char- acter, to develop sweet and holy life, otherwise history is a despair, and ex- perience a hopeless riddle. All truly great human life has been lived with a spiritual outlook, and on a high level. Men have felt instinctively that there is no justifica- tion for all the pain, and strife, and fail- _ ure, and sorrow of the world, if these do ve not serve a higher purpose than mere existence. Even our tenderest relation- >» ships. need some more authoritative war- rant than is to be found in themselves, even in the joy and hope they bring. ING That joy cannot be meant as an empty loro lure to keep life on the earth. NU i And spiritual man has also discovered ies that the very breakdown of human ties \ ka ( leads out to a larger and more permanent _ iN yi love. It is sooner or later found that the >=. most perfect love cannot utterly satisfy the heart of man. All our human inter- _. course, blessed and helpful as it may be, > must be necessarily fragmentary and i 6 \ via 21 NGO) f AR CTC, TG — ZS RARE IU oe 2 USER AG wr ee eee Weis wr SSNS partial. A man must discover that there is an infinite in him, which only the infi- nite can match and supply. It is no dis- paragement of human friendship to admit this. It remains a blessed fact that it is possible to meet devotion, which makes us both humble and proud; humble at the sight of its noble sacrifice, proud with a glad pride at its wondrous beauty. Man is capable of the highest heights of love. But man can never take the place of God, and without God life is shorn of its glory and divested of its meaning. So the human heart has ever craved for a relationship, deeper and more lasting than any possible among men, undis- turbed by change, unmenaced by death, junbroken by fear, unclouded by doubt. ‘The limitations and losses of earthly} friendship are meant to drive us to the: higher friendship. (Life is an education) _in_love, but the education is not com- plete till we learn the love of the eternal, Ordinary friendship has done its worl when the limits of friendship are reached N wy rv Tr DOCS PT eeS ee TRIES ot sD ae _ ee ee a ike Tp Telit; Unt “7 i - PSS PWS ww OR, Sed a Sek | CYS OV SCY NCSA Y LY ’ Ia ard b * YB ee : Eee FSF ONE SD ee” ; lcdehe tates Loh ¥ OB ete et ny ¥ : See oer TE a = y LS & een et erp — as ponaratrs heater) pe: : faiers evonsone - are f Sas ETT a3 ele THE 7 aha FRIENDSHIP | eee a i leveneticeie ice LT - ETH Seger Basak Goened tecianperpiprestiennencipeesnsteetarirparstrataareyictinereiocmmean severe intone eee a ec aA RE a A A SRT ANCE OC ASSET Segaee oonmen eet ee \when through the discipline of love we\ are led into a larger love, when a door is | opened out to a “higher life. The sick- } ness of heart which is the lot of all, the SH fi Ht yy i yt i atl ' friend can dispel, the grief which seems to stop the pulse of life itself, find their} final meaning in this compulsion toward the divine. We are sometimes driven out not knowing whither we go, not know} _. ing the purpose of it; only knowing _ through sheer necessity that here we havé SRG APE INE TET EM SNL eee = PRE Wee HOTS irr TALENTS that hath foundations. i acer oa | friends, as if only to prove to us that _ | without love we cannot live. All our} -_ intimacies are but broken lights of the} | love of God. They are methods off Wit preparation for the great communion.| In so far even that our earthly friendships, are helps to life, it is because they ares Say aan Ma la Me CE Sires ree UT RAL mavens fim wa pens no abiding city, or home, or life, or love} and seeking a city, a home, a life, a love, ‘We have some training in the love of | | shot through with the spiritual, and they) Aaa us by their ~218 deficiencies for a | capapetcics | a trae 4 . SS say phe era as Rite, «Arete stair: arma emt - Pin mANITe elie... canlwineure A oolatert aretha vee etntrrenesrelon mace Dement . fe iwc ie senraaiacienscacalbpes: sabi nnn sail ayantneiyeicemetinmt farina G Ks ia ib ake sel) ma rt rman pe eee lot ~- (OR SSS A a eee aS ' Ioneliness which not even the voice of aj 4 i i { ~ > EF ies saasieens Lede hy ere em Re ce | something more permanent. There have i been implanted in man an instinct, and a need, which make him discontented, till he find content in God. If at any time we are forced to cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils, it is that we may, reach out to the infinite Father, unchang- | ever. This is the clamant, imperious need of man. The solitude of life in its ultimate issue is because we were made for a higher companionship. It is just in the inner- ant, that God meets us. Weare driven} to God by the needs of the heart. If the, existence of God was due to a purely i in-| tellectual necessity; if we believed in Him) _ only because our reason gave warrant for’ the faith; it would not matter much, - instincts of our nature, and the necessi- | ' ties of the heart-life demand God, we; are forced to believe. In moments of) . CP a a a CMTE a VIC PIE Ned Sood ANG PSUS SPU AS ES net Noda PES aS ee 38 aroeanis teeta seve me P ve} = Cy a PVE ry ¥ ( i 3 Ah ‘Si - Ne é { Ze. vy \/ 4 = ome scans anata ta = tcc nn) memento ing, the same yesterday, to-day, and for= | most sanctuary, shut to every other visit- / |) really can know Him. But when the’ ic THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP j } Wi “~ a) OA > lt ; ; iy | VANS /} J | a Oe hf ys 4 os PIN 1} "whether He really is, and whether we} Cy deep feeling, when all pretence is si lenced, a man may be still able to ques- tion the exzstence_of God, but he does not question his own need of God. Man, to remain man, must believe in the POS: sibility of this relationship with the divine. There is a love which passeth the love of women, passeth the love of comrades, passeth all earthly love,-the love of Gog to the weary, starved heart of man. To believe in this great fact does not detract from human friendship, but really gives it worth and glory. It is because of this, that all love has a place in the life of man. All our worships, and friend- ships, and loves, come from God, and are but reflections of the divine tender- ness. All that is beautiful, and lovely and pure, and of good repute, finds its appropriate setting in God; for it was made by God. } He made it for Himself, He made man with instincts, and aspira- tions, and heart-hunger, and divine un- rest, that He might give them full satis- faction in Himself. He claims every-« 220 | asec ows amey mens See sa DTS Sane a Poneman aon seks ee Tha! dd VDA AE Ed ZEST COORD) UII) a en en SLOSS LPO NE SOA THA BUCH ie en mais = but He gives everything. Our human relationships are sanctified and glorified by the spiritual union. He gives us back our kinships, and friendships, with a new light on them, an added tenderness, transfiguring our common ties and intimacies, flooding them with a supernal joy. fWe part from men to meet with God, that we may be able to meet men again on a higher platform. But the love of God is the end and de- sign of all other loves. If the flowers and leaves fade, it is that the time of ripe fruit is at hand. If these adornments are taken from the tree of life, it is to make | room for the Supreme fruitage. Without the love of God all other love would be but deception, luring men on to the awful disillusionment. We were born for the love of God; if we do not find it, it were better for us if we had never been born. We may have tasted of all the joys the | world can offer, have known success and | the gains of success, been blessed with | the sweetest friendships and the fiercest | 221 dds I DS PS A DAVOEIRAS DIS y PA) IOVS —— > ~~ THE HIGHER = RIENDSHIP ROTA PR CNC RUGS] MDT io ‘ Pe. y TIT Wae , PIeAN rc ary: ay Free & ee a ices a nr I a eT en eats f Wey EE EIR AT RIOTS BIER SS eee owe pocenirg wn TLR Pee D ey as Pacire Dey LeU w ai eee a we. be A Pe / SIRE weer feigiass 2 nr reg to ante eT ce a manna tr saat Pea Stes WIA Sins SS ES AS anaes er Se loves; but if we have not found this the chief end of life, we have missed our chance, and can only have at the last a desolated life. But if through the joy or through the sorrow of life, through love or the want of it, through the gaining of friends or the loss of them, we have been led to | dower our lives with the friendship of | God, we are possessed of the incorrupti- ble, and undefiled. and that passeth not | away. The man who has it hasattained | the secret cheaply, though it had to be purchased with his heart’s blood, with the loss of his dream of blessedness. When the fabric of life crumbled to its native dust, and he rose out of its wreck, the vision of the eternal love came with the thrill of a great revelation. It was the entrance into the mystery, and the wonder of it awed him, and the joy of it | inspired him, and he awakened to the | fact that never again could he be aloneto | all eternity. at ’ Communion. with God is the great fact se 223 mre h Ab ; BG GG, 2) ; DS) ‘ = rata a ne eee are eS hs LT I Le NS I par aa ch an reat te rape Ler hl ye ea _of life. All our forms of worship, all our “ceremonies and symbols of religion, find their meaning here. There is, it is true, an ethic of religion, certain moral teach- ings valuable for life: there are truths of religion to be laid hold of by the reason: ~there are the consolations of religion to comfort the heart: but the root of all re- ligion is this mystical union, a ‘commun- ion with the Unseen, a friendship. with God open to man. Religion is not an acceptance of a creed, or a burden of commandments, but a personal secret of the soul, tobe attained..each_man_ for himself. It is the experience of the nearness of God, the mysterious contact with the divine, and the consciousness that we stand in a special individual re- lationship with Him. The first state of exaltation, when the knowledge burst upon the soul, cannot, of course, last; but its effect remains in inward peace, and outward impulse toward nobler life. Men of all ages have known this close relationship. The possibility of it is the 223 oe oe ee ——- > a THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP THE HIGHER ‘FRIENDSHIP vat emp new ran es lived in the light of this communion. All religious experience has had this in common, that somehow the soul is so possessed by God, that doubt of His ex- istence ceases ; and the task of life be- comes to keep step with Him, so that there may be correspondence between the outer and the inner conditions of life. Men have known this communion in such a degree that they have been called preéminently the Friends of God, but something of the experience which un derlies the term is true of the pious of al} generations. To us, in our place in history, com- munion with God comes through Jesus Christ. It is an ineffable mystery, but it is still a fact of experience. Only through Jesus do we know God, His interest in us, His desire for us, His purpose with us. He not only shows us in His own example the blessedness of a life in fel- a ce rst Saye a RViTe 7% ; ie & LIONS aly USA Bed : Yy . Ske oes ROS a we ASS pas aan DOSE a z if { _ glory of life: the fact of itisthe romance | of history, and the true reading of history. . All devout men that have ever lived have © 4 SER, q _ yr ~ _ P . — — _ AS Sit a - THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP if beens _ lowship with the Father, but He makes it possible for us. United to Jesus, we know ourselves united to God. The - power of Jesus is not limited to the his- _ torical impression made by His life. It | entered the world as history; it lives in | the world as spiritual fact to-day. Lu- _ ther’s experience is the experience of all - believers, “To me it is not simply an old | story of an event that happened once ; | for it is a gift, a bestowing, that endures forever.” We offer Christ the submis- | sion of our hearts, and the obedience of _ our lives; and He offers us His abiding presence. We take Him as our Master; : and He takes us as His friends. ‘I call _ you no longer servants,” He said to His _ disciples, ‘‘but I have called you friends.” _ The servant knoweth not what his Mas- _ ter doeth, his only duty is to obey; a _ friend is admitted to confidence, and _ though he may do the same thing as a _ servant, he does not do it any longer un- - reasoningly, but, having been taken into | counsel, he knows why he is doing it, | 225 iy } & db} te . “\ } rTY fii} 14 { i} | } tH | Hy 1 | i} ay Bee t} : Hel . fi} He) Pore RO nt 15) it { ys {tt 1 ee aig iA yj fat Fae | pA | th + : . tt fie aT, UAL tg AMs | 1 | Y } i ff) eye. OPP ET ALAM } iH} tt i AHI eee x ~ Neg eye) tie ayia rive ee ag Hie ) Tit TAM iy} { it Se Hey } ii ih} Lit 11h 4 t eine ' Vl ’ WI) Aw Lea ese a le | ia € aw 8: Hin peo e Ai Hie EW LAT aa y aie ti HALT } a WNL f yi ss a fe ‘ Sy. eee vy AN ONS a A ay uf LA} ey eR H i \ Mt Fa EI fr Bebe nm Ee CPT Ant Hap As PeAle 2 oe, Bee achat onanee THE F HIGHER FRIENDSHIP VAITRIG) eve) UO VP SEVAILEES a eo Aes we pirat ad sharers chen Spb nemenrem This was Christ’s method with His dis- ciples, not to apportion to each his task, but to show then: His great purpose for the world, and to ask for their service and devotion to carry it out. The distinction is not that a servant pleases his master, and a friend pleases himself. It is that our Lord takes us up into a relationship of love with Himself, and we go out into life inspired with His spirit to work His work. It begins with the self-surrender of love; and love, not fear nor favor, becomes the motive. To feel thus the touch of God on our lives changes the world. Its fruits are joy, and peace, and confidence that all the events of life are suffused, not only with meaning, but with a meaning of love. The higher friendship brings a satisfac- tion of the heart, and a joy commensu- rate to the love. Its reward is itself, the sweet, enthrailing relationship, not any adventitious gain it promises, either in the present, or for the future. Even if 226 g Ps wAse enw AeDe 1 618) CITT there were no physical, or moral, rewards TE Par DY a ANAM rere ri 0 woah dona eniancer > egrees: a ° [SESE CACHO DIO ICC PNG ee THE HIGHER F FRIENDSHIP Rey aeainenoe Sete He tea a Ny Laie ie aien si@suenies tian and punishments in the world, we would still love and serve Christ for His own sake. The soul that is bound by this personal attachment to Jesus has a life in the eternal, which transfigures the life in time with a great joy. We can see at once that to be the friend of God will mean peace also. It has brought peace over the troubled lives of all His friends throughout the ages.’ i Every man who enters into the covenant, knows the world to be a spiritual arena, in which the love of God manifests itself. He walks no longer on a sodden earth and under a grey sky; for he knows that, though all men misunderstand him, he is understood, and followed with lov- ing sympathy, in heaven. It was this confidence in God as a real and near friend, which gave to Abraham’s life such distinction, and the calm repose which made his character so impressive. Strong in the sense of God’s friendship, he lived above the world, prodigal of present possessions, because sure of the future, 27 etnies SY A ene ee re eee tenrerenpennenines i At 2 a ORAS aM 2 PeIeLCIN “THE 1 HIGHER R FRIENDSHIP waiting securely in the Hoes of the great — salvation. He walked with God in sweet | unaffected piety, and serene faith, letting his character ripen in the sunshine, and living out his life as unto God not unto | men. To know the love of God does not mean the impoverishing of our lives, by robbing them of their other sweet re- lations. Rather, it means the enriching of these, by revealing their true beauty and purpose. Sometimes we are brought nearer God through our friends, if nos © love, then through the discipline comes from their very limitati from their loss. a oe fellows. The nearer we 9 of the circle, the nearer we get to each other. To be joined together in Christ — is the only permanent union, deeper than the tie of blood, higher than the bond of kin, closer than the most sacred earthly © 228 | CVT yey Peres ADAP IA Sia RV, ase SN SENS LS te al ,can be increased, and love stimulated, | and cnthusiasm revived by intercourse.) _ The supreme friendship with Christ} therefore will not take from us any |). of our treasured intimacies, unless they |} | _ Lord in sincerity and truth. lt will open a Spiritual kinship { is the | great nexus to unite men. ‘‘Who are My brethren?” asked Jesus, and for an- swer pointed to His disciples, and added, ‘¢Whosoever shall do the will of My Father in heaven the same is My mother and sister and brother.” _ We ought to make more of our Christian friendships, the communion of the saints, the fellowship of believers. “They that feared God spake often one with another,” said the prophet Malachi in one of the darkest hours of the church. What mutual comfort, and renewed hope, they would get from, and give to, each other! Faith are evil. It will increase the number of them, and the true force of them. It will link us on to all who love the same Sieeee TC ae IN SPI WI eS er ‘ LOD io Se a ae er ye sataatrta keene use do Wall haunt or eamomrgtn e/ “hs deans geet es Se ohare RS Ce Ae ee —r thnk fife, as dew upon the thirsty ground. There is an interchange of feeling, a re~ sponsiveness of love, a thrill of mutual friendship. l “You must love Him, ere to you | He shall seem worthy of your love.” i , The great appeal of the Christian faith is to Christian experience. Loving Christ DG AEST A heart knows. Life evidences itself: the ati existence of light is its own proof. The = 4) power of Christ on the heart needs no ell other argument than itself. Men only eqns - doubt when the life has died out, and | ani | the light has waned, and flickered, and | | is | _ spent itself. It is when there is no sign Wil | of the spirit in our midst, no token of Vi _ forces beyond the normal and the usual, 5 eas | that we can deny the spirit. It is when | \ faith is not in evidence that we can dis- | pute faith. It is when love is dead that ‘A _ we can question love. The Christian HI _ faith is not a creed, but a life; not a js) \ proposition, but a passion. Love is its iy vi ee? ANC YA iLV I Tt EVO TA RCV on [vas BOOM ‘THE HIGHER FRIENDSHIP is its own justification, as every loving ys! es Re .. nu 30112 1